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PRINCIPLES  OP  FREEDOM 


PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 


BY 

TERENCE   MacSWINEY 

LATE   LOED  MAYOR  OF  COEK 


BOSTON  COLLEGE  LIBRARY 
CHESTNUT  HILL.  MASS« 

NEW  YOEK 

E.  P.  DUTTON  &  COMPANY 
681  FIFTH  AVENUE 


COPYRIGHT,  1921, 

BY  E.  p.  BUTTON  &  COMPANY 


All  Bights  Beserved 


First  printing January,  1921 


PxlxLted  In  tlie  Vnited  States  of  Amexioa 


-^04882 


TO 

THE  SOLDIERS  OF  FREEDOM 
IN  EVERY  LAND 


PREFACE 

It  was  my  intention  to  publish  these  articles 
in  book  form  as  soon  as  possible.  I  had  them 
typed  for  the  purpose.  I  had  no  time  for  re- 
vision save  to  insert  in  the  typed  copy  words 
or  lines  omitted  from  the  original  printed  mat- 
ter. I  also  made  an  occasional  verbal  altera- 
tion in  the  original.  One  article,  however,  that 
on  ^* Intellectual  Freedom,''  though  written  in 
the  series  in  the  place  in  which  it  now  stands, 
was  not  printed  with  them.  It  is  now  published 
for  the  first  timi^. 

Eeligion 

I  wish  to  make  a  note  on  the  article  under 
this  heading  to  avoid  a  possible  misconception 
amongst  people  outside  Ireland.  In  Ireland 
there  is  no  religious  dissension,  but  there  is 
religious  sincerity.  English  politicians,  to 
serve  the  end  of  dividing  Ireland,  have  worked 
on  the  religious  feelings  of  the  North,  suggest- 
ing the  danger  of  Catholic  ascendancy.    There 

vii 


viii  PREFACE 

is  not  now,  and  there  never  was,  any  such  dan- 
ger, but  our  enemies,  by  raising  the  cry,  sowed 
discord  in  the  North,  with  the  aim  of  destroying 
Irish  unity.  It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that 
when  the  Eepublican  Standard  was  first  raised 
in  the  field  in  Ireland,  in  the  Eising  of  1798, 
Catholics  and  Protestants  in  the  North  were 
united  in  the  cause.  Belfast  was  the  first  home 
of  Eepublicanism  in  Ireland.  This  is  the  truth 
of  the  matter.  The  present  day  cleavage  is  an 
unnatural  thing  created  by  Ireland's  enemies 
to  hold  her  in  subjection  and  will  disappear 
entirely  with  political  Freedom. 

It  has  had,  however,  in  our  day,  one  unhappy 
effect,  only  for  a  time  fortunately,  and  this  is 
disappearing.  I  refer  to  the  rise  of  Hibernian- 
ism.  The  English  ruling  faction  having,  for 
their  own  political  designs,  corrupted  the 
Orangemen  with  power  and  flattery,  enabled 
them  to  establish  an  ascendancy  not  only  over 
Ulster,  but  indirectly  by  their  vote  over  the 
South.  This  becoming  intolerable,  some  sin- 
cere but  misguided  Catholics  in  the  North, 
joined  the  organisation  known  as  THE  AN- 
CIENT OEDEE  OF  HIBEENIANS.  This 
was  in  effect  a  sort  of  Catholic  Freemasonry 


PREFACE  ix 

to  counter  the  Orange  Freemasonry,  but  like 
Orangeism,  it  was  a  political  and  not  a  religious 
weapon. 

Further,  as  a  political  weapon,  it  extended  all 
through  Ireland  during  the  last  years  of  the 
Irish  Parliamentary  Movement.  In  Cork,  for 
example,  it  completely  controlled  the  city  life 
for  some  years,  but  the  rapid  rise  of  the  Repub- 
lican Movement  brought  about  the  equally 
rapid  fall  of  Hibernianism.  At  the  present 
moment  it  has  as  little  influence  in  the  public 
life  of  Cork  as  Sir  Edward  Carson  himself. 
The  great  bulk  of  its  one-time  members  have 
joined  the  Republican  Movement.  This  demon- 
strates clearly  that  anything  in  the  nature  of  a 
sectarian  movement  is  essentially  repugnant  to 
the  Irish  people.  As  I  have  pointed  out  the 
Hibernian  Order,  when  created,  became  at  once 
a  political  weapon,  but  Ireland  has  discarded 
that,  and  other  such  weapons,  for  those  with 
which  she  is  carving  out  the  destinies  of  the 
Republic.  For  a  time,  however,  Hibernianism 
created  an  unnatural  atmosphere  of  sectarian 
rivalry  in  Ireland.  That  has  now  happily 
passed  away.  At  the  time,  however,  of  the 
writing  of  the  article  on  Religion  it  was  at  its 


X  PREFACE 

height,  and  this  fact  coloured  the  writing  of  the 
article.  On  re-reading  it  and  considering  the 
publication  of  the  present  work  I  was  inclined 
to  suppress  it,  but  decided  that  it  ought  to  be 
included  because  it  bears  directly  on  the  evil  of 
materialism  in  religious  bodies,  which  is  a  mat- 
ter of  grave  concern  to  every  rehgious  com- 
munity in  the  world. 

T.  Macs. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    The  Basis  op  Freedom     .        .        .        «        .  1 

II.    Separation 12 

III.  Moral   Force 26 

IV.  Brothers  and  Enemies 42 

V.    The  Secret  of  Strength 58 

VI.    Principle   in   Action 75 

VII.    Loyalty 99 

Vin.    Womanhood 114 

IX.    The  Frontier 131 

X.    Literature  and  Freedom — The  Propagandist 

Playwright 142 

XI.    Literature  and  Freedom — ^Aet  for  Art  's  Sake  152 

XII.    Eeligion .  162 

XIII.    Intellectual  Freedom 176 

XrV.     Militarism 189 

XV.     The  Empire 197 

XVI.    Resistance  in  Arms — Foreword     .        .        .  210 

XVII.    Resistance  in  Arms — The  True  Meaning  of 

Law 217 

XVIII.    Resistance  in  Arms — OTbjections    .        .        .  228 

XIX.    The  Bearna  Baoghail — Conclusion        .        .  236 

xi 


PRINCIPLES  OP  FREEDOM 


PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

CHAPTER  I 

THE   BASIS   OF   FREEDOM 


X^THY  should  we  fight  for  freedom?  Is  it 
V  V  not  strange,  that  it  has  become  neces- 
sary to  ask  and  answer  this  question*?  We 
have  fought  our  fight  for  centuries,  and  con- 
tending parties  still  continue  the  struggle,  but 
the  real  significance  of  the  struggle  and  its  true 
motive  force  are  hardly  at  all  understood,  and 
there  is  a  curious  but  logical  result.  Men  tech- 
nically on  the  same  side  are  separated  by  dif- 
ferences wide  and  deep,  both  of  ideal  and  plan 
of  action ;  while,  conversely,  men  technically  op- 
posed have  perhaps  more  in  common  than  we 
realise  in  a  sense  deeper  than  we  under- 
stand. 

1 


2  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

ii 

This  is  tlie  question  I  would  discuss.  I  find 
in  practice  eveiywliere  in  Ireland — it  is  worse 
out  of  Ireland — the  doctrine,  **The  end  justi- 
fies the  means." 

One  party  will  denounce  another  for  the  use 
of  discreditable  tactics,  but  it  will  have  no  hesi- 
tation in  using  such  itself  if  it  can  thereby 
snatch  a  discreditable  victory.  So,  clear  speak- 
ing is  needed :  a  fight  that  is  not  clean-handed 
will  make  victory  more  disgraceful  than  any 
defeat.  I  make  the  point  here  because  we  stand 
for  separation  from  the  British  Empire,  and 
because  I  have  heard  it  argued  that  we  ought, 
if  we  could,  make  a  foreign  alliance  to  crush 
English  power  here,  even  if  our  foreign  allies 
were  engaged  in  crushing  freedom  elsewhere. 
When  such  a  question  can  be  proposed  it  should 
be  answered,  though  the  time  is  not  ripe  to  test 
it.  If  Ireland  were  to  win  freedom  by  helping 
directly  or  indirectly  to  crush  another  people 
she  would  earn  the  execration  she  has  herself 
poured  out  on  tyranny  for  ages.  I  have  come 
to  see  it  is  possible  for  Ireland  to  win  her  in- 
dependence by  base  methods.    It  is  imperative, 


THE  BASIS  OF  FREEDOM  3 

therefore,  that  we  should  declare  ourselves  and 
know  where  we  stand.  And  I  stand  by  this 
principle :  no  physical  victory  can  compensate 
for  spiritual  surrender.  Whatever  side  denies 
that  is  not  my  side. 

What,  then,  is  the  true  basis  to  our  claim  to 
freedom?  There  are  two  points  of  view.  The 
first  we  have  when  fresh  from  school,  still  in 
our  teens,  ready  to  tilt  against  everyone  and 
everything,  delighting  in  saying  smart  things 
— and  able  sometimes  to  say  them — talking 
much  and  boldly  of  freedom,  but  satisfied  if  the 
thing  sounds  bravely.  There  is  the  later  point 
of  view.  We  are  no  longer  boys ;  we  have  come 
to  review  the  situation,  and  take  a  definite 
stand  in  life.  We  have  had  years  of  experi- 
ence, keen  struggles,  not  a  little  bitterness,  and 
we  are  steadied.  We  feel  a  heart-beat  for 
deeper  things.  It  is  no  longer  sufficient  that 
they  sound  bravely;  they  must  ring  true.  The 
school  boy's  dream  is  more  of  a  Roman  tri- 
umph— tramping  armies,  shouting  multitudes, 
waving  banners — all  good  enough  in  their  way. 
But  the  dream  of  men  is  for  something  beyond 
all  this  show*  If  it  were  not,  it  could  hardly 
claim  a  sacrifice. 


4  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

•  •• 
m 

A  spiritual  necessity  makes  the  true  signifi- 
cance of  our  claim  to  freedom :  the  material  as- 
pect is  only  a  secondary  consideration.  A  man 
facing  life  is  gifted  with  certain  powers  of  soul 
and  body.  It  is  of  vital  importance  to  himself 
and  the  community  that  he  be  given  a  full  op- 
portunity to  develop  his  powers,  and  to  fill  his 
place  worthily.  In  a  free  state  he  is  in  the 
natural  environment  for  full  self-development. 
In  an  enslaved  state  it  is  the  reverse.  When 
one  country  holds  another  in  subjection  that 
other  suffers  materially  and  morally.  It  suf- 
fers materially,  being  a  prey  for  plunder.  It 
suffers  morally  because  of  the  corrupt  influ- 
ences the  bigger  nation  sets  at  work  to  main- 
tain its  ascendency.  Because  of  this  moral 
corruption  national  subjection  should  be  re- 
sisted as  a  state,  fostering  vice;  and  as  in  the 
case  of  vice,  when  we  understand  it  we  have  no 
option  but  to  fight.  With  it  we  can  make  no 
terms.  It  is  the  duty  of  the  rightful  power  to 
develop  the  best  in  its  subjects:  it  is  the  prac- 
tice of  the  usurping  power  to  develop  the  bas- 
est.    Our    history    affords    many    examples. 


THE  BASIS  OF  FREEDOM  5^ 

When  our  rulers  visit  Ireland  they  bestow  fa-^ 
vours  and  titles  on  the  supporters  of  their  re- 
gime— ^but  it  is  always  seen  that  the  greatest 
favours  and  highest  titles  are  not  for  the  honest 
adherent  of  their  power — ^but  for  him  who  has 
betrayed  the  national  cause  that  he  entered 
public  life  to  support.  Observe  the  men  who 
might  be  respected  are  passed  over  for  him 
who  ought  to  be  despised.  In  the  corrupt 
politician  there  was  surely  a  better  nature. 
A  free  state  would  have  encouraged  and  de- 
veloped it.  The  usurping  state  titled  him  for 
the  use  of  his  baser  instincts.  Such  allurement 
must  mean  demoralisation.  We  are  none  of 
us  angels,  and  under  the  best  of  circumstances 
find  it  hard  to  do  worthy  things ;  when  all  the 
temptation  is  to  do  unworthy  things  we  are 
demoralised.  Most  of  us,  happily,  will  not 
give  ourselves  over  to  the  evil  influence,  but 
we  lose  faith  in  the  ideal.  We  are  apathetic. 
We  have  powers  and  let  them  lie  fallow.  Our 
minds  should  be  restless  for  noble  and  beauti- 
ful things;  they  are  hopeless  in  a  land  every- 
where confined  and  wasted.  In  the  destruction 
of  spirit  entailed  lies  the  deeper  significance  of 
our  claim  to  freedom. 


6  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

iv 

It  is  a  spiritual  appeal,  then,  that  primarily 
moves  us.  We  are  urged  to  action  by  a  beauti- 
ful ideal.  The  motive  force  must  be  likewise 
true  and  beautiful.  It  is  love  of  country  that 
inspires  us;  not  hate  of  the  enemy  and  desire 
for  full  satisfaction  for  the  past.  Pane  awhile. 
We  are  all  irritated  now  and  then  by  some 
mawkish  interpretation  of  our  motive  force 
4hat  makes  it  seem  a  weakly  thing,  invoked  to 
help  us  in  evading  difficulties  instead  of  con- 
quering them.  Love  in  any  genuine  form 
is  strong,  vital  and  warm-blooded.  Let  it  not 
be  confused  with  any  flabby  substitute. 
Take  a  parallel  case.  Should  we,  because 
of  the  mawkishness  of  a  ** Princess  Novelette,'^ 
deride  the  beautiful  dream  that  keeps  ages 
wondering  and  joyous,  that  is  occasionally 
caught  up  in  the  words  of  genius,  as  when 
Shelley  sings :  '  *  I  arise  from  dreams  of  thee ' '  ? 
When  foolish  people  make  a  sacred  thing  seem 
silly,  let  us  at  least  be  sane.  The  man 
who  cries  out  for  the  sacred  thing  but  voices 
a  universal  need.  To  exist,  the  healthy 
mind  must  have  beautiful  things — the  rapture 


THE  BASIS  OF  FREEDOM  7 

of  a  song,  the  music  of  running  water,  the  glory 
of  the  sunset  and  its  dreams,  and  the  deeper 
dreams  of  the  dawn.  It  is  nothing  but  love  of 
country  that  rouses  us  to  make  our  land  full- 
blooded  and  beautiful  where  now  she  is  pallid 
and  wasted.  This,  too,  has  its  deeper  signifi- 
cance. 


If  we  want  full  revenge  for  the  past  the  best 
way  to  get  it  is  to  remain  as  we  are.  As  we 
are  Ireland  is  a  menace  to  England.  We  need 
not  debate  this — she  herself  admits  it  by  her 
continued  efforts  to  pacify  us  in  her  own  stupid 
way.  Would  she  not  ignore  us  if  it  were  quite 
safe  so  to  do  1  On  the  other  hand,  if  we  succeed 
in  our  efforts  to  separate  from  her,  the  benefit 
to  England  will  be  second  only  to  our  o^vn. 
This  might  strike  us  strangely,  but  'tis  true, 
not  the  less  true  because  the  English  people 
could  hardly  understand  or  appreciate  it  now. 
The  military  defence  of  Ireland  is  almost  farci- 
cal. A  free  Ireland  could  make  it  a  reality — 
could  make  it  strong  against  invasion.  This 
would  secure  England  from  attack  on  our  side. 
No  one  is,  I  take  it,  so  foolish  as  to  suppose, 


8  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

ibeing  free,  we  would  enter  quarrels  not  our 
own.  We  should  remain  neutral.  Our  common 
sense  would  so  dictate,  our  sense  of  right  would 
so  demand.  The  freedom  of  a  nation  carries 
with  it  the  responsibility  that  it  be  no  menace 
to  the  freedom  of  another  nation.  The  freedom 
of  all  makes  for  the  security  of  all.  If  there 
are  tyrannies  on  earth  one  nation  cannot  set 
things  right,  but  it  is  still  bound  so  to  order 
its  own  affairs  as  to  be  consistent  with  uni- 
versal freedom  and  friendship.  And,  again, 
strange  as  it  may  seem,  separation  from  Eng- 
land will  alone  make  for  final  friendship  with 
England.  For  no  one  is  so  foolish  as  to  wish 
to  be  for  ever  at  war  with  England.  It  is  un- 
thinkable. Now  the  most  beautiful  motive  for 
freedom  is  vindicated.  Our  liberty  stands  to 
benefit  the  enemy  instead  of  injuring  him.  If 
we  want  to  injure  him,  we  should  remain  as  we 
are — a  menace  to  him.  The  opportunity  will 
come,  but  it  would  hardly  make  us  happy.  This 
but  makes  clear  a  need  of  the  human  race. 
Freedom  rightly  considered  is  not  a  mere  set- 
ting-up of  a  number  of  independent  units.  It 
makes  for  harmony  among  nations  and  good 
fellowship  on  earth. 


THE  BASIS  OF  FEEEDOM  9 

vi 

I  have  written  carefully  that  no  one  may 
escape  the  conclusion.  It  is  clear  and  exacting, 
but  in  the  issue  it  is  beautiful.  We  fight  for 
freedom — ^not  for  the  vanity  of  the  world,  not 
to  have  a  fine  conceit  of  ourselves,  not  to  be  as 
bad — or  if  we  prefer  to  put  it  so,  as  big  as  our 
neighbours.  The  inspiration  is  drawn  from  a 
deeper  element  of  our  being.  We  stifle  for  self- 
development  individually  and  as  a  nation.  If 
we  don't  go  forward  we  must  go  down.  It  is 
a  matter  of  life  and  death;  it  is  our  souPs  sal- 
vation. If  the  whole  nation  stand  for  it,  we 
are  happy;  we  shall  be  grandly  victorious.  If 
only  a  few  are  faithful  found  they  must  be  the 
more  steadfast  for  being  but  a  few.  They  stand 
for  an  individual  right  that  is  inalienable.  A 
majority  has  no  right  to  annul  it,  and  no  power 
to  destroy  it.  Tyrannies  may  persecute,  slay, 
or  banish  those  who  defend  it;  the  thing  is  in- 
destructible. It  does  not  need  legions  to  pro- 
tect it  nor  genius  to  proclaim  it,  though  the 
poets  have  always  glorified  it,  and  the  legions 
will  ultimately  acknowledge  it.  One  man  alone 
may  vindicate  it,  and  because  that  one  man  has 


10  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

never  failed  it  has  never  died.  Not,  indeed, 
that  Ireland  has  ever  been  reduced  to  a  single 
loyal  son.  She  never  will  be.  We  have  not 
survived  the  centuries  to  be  conquered  now. 
But  the  profound  significance  of  the  struggle, 
of  its  deep  spiritual  appeal,  of  the  imperative 
need  for  a  motive  force  as  lofty  and  beautiful, 
of  the  consciousness  that  worthy  winning  of 
freedom  is  a  labour  for  human  brotherhood; 
the  significance  of  it  all  is  seen  in  the  obliga- 
tion it  imposes  on  everyone  to  be  true,  the  ma- 
jority notwithstanding.  He  is  called  to  a 
grave  charge  who  is  called  to  resist  the  ma- 
jority. But  he  will  resist,  knowing  his  vic- 
tory will  lead  them  to  a  dearer  dream  than 
they  had  ever  known.  He  will  fight  for  that 
ideal  in  obscurity,  little  heeded — in  the  open, 
misunderstood;  in  humble  places,  still  un- 
daunted; in  high  places,  seizing  every  van- 
tage point,  never  crushed,  never  silent,  never 
despairing,  cheering  a  few  comrades  with 
hope  for  the  morrow.  And  should  these  few 
sink  in  the  struggle  the  greatness  of  the  ideal 
is  proven  in  the  last  hour;  as  they  fall  their 
country  awakens  to  their  dream  and  he  who 


THE  BASIS  OF  FREEDOM  11 

inspired  and  sustained  them  is  justified;  justi- 
fied against  the  whole  race,  he  who  once  stood 
alone  against  them.  In  the  hour  he  falls  he  is 
the  saviour  of  his  race. 


CHAPTER  II 

SEPAKATION 


WHEN  we  plead  for  separation  from  the 
British  Empire  as  the  only  basis  on 
which  our  country  can  have  full  development, 
and  on  which  we  can  have  final  peace  with  Eng- 
land, we  find  in  opponents  a  variety  of  atti- 
tudes, but  one  attitude  invariably  absent^ — a 
readiness  to  discuss  the  question  fairly  and 
refute  it,  if  this  can  be  done.  One  man  will 
take  it  superficially  and  heatedly,  assuming  it 
to  be,  according  to  his  party,  a  censure  on  Mr. 
Redmond  or  Mr.  O'Brien.  Another  will  take 
it  superficially,  but,  as  he  thinks,  philosophi- 
cally and  will  dismiss  it  with  a  smile.  With  the 
followers  of  Mr.  Redmond  or  Mr.  O'Brien  we 
can  hardly  argue  at  present,  but  we  should  not 
lose  heart  on  their  account,  for  these  men  move 
en  masse.     One  day  the  consciousness  of  the 

12 


SEPARATION  13 

country  will  be  electrified  with  a  great  deed  or 
a  great  sacrifice  and  the  multitude  will  break 
from  lethargy  or  prejudice  and  march  with  a 
shout  for  freedom  in  a  true,  a  brave,  and  a 
beautiful  sense.  We  must  work  and  prepare 
for  that  hour.  Then  there  is  our  philosophical 
friend.  I  expect  him  to  hear  my  arguments. 
When  I  am  done,  he  may  not  agree  with  me  on 
all  points;  he  may  not  agree  with  me  on  any 
point;  but  if  he  come  with  me,  I  promise  him 
one  thing:  this  question  can  no  longer  be  dis- 
missed with  a  smile. 

ii 

Our  friend's  attitude  is  explained  in  part  by 
our  never  having  attempted  to  show  that  a 
separatist  policy  is  great  and  wise.  We  have 
held  it  as  a  right,  have  fought  for  it,  have  made 
sacrifices  for  it,  and  vowed  to  have  it  at  any 
cost;  but  we  have  not  found  for  it  a  definite 
place  in  a  philosophy  of  life.  Superficial 
though  he  be,  our  friend  has  indicated  a  need : 
we  must  take  the  question  philosophically — ^but 
in  the  great  and  true  sense.  It  is  a  truism  of 
philosophy  and  science  that  the  world  is  a  har- 
monious whole,  and  that  with  the  increase  of 


14  PRINCIPLES  OP  FREEDOM 

knowledge,  laws  can  be  discovered  to  explain 
tlie  order  and  the  unity  of  the  universe.  Ac- 
cordingly, if  we  are  to  justify  our  own  position 
as  separatists,  we  must  show  that  it  will  har- 
monise, u^ify  and  develop  our  national  life, 
that  it  will  restore  us  to  a  place  among  the  na- 
tions, to  fulfil  a  national  destiny,  a  destiny 
which  through  all  our  struggles  we  ever  be- 
lieve is  great,  and  waiting  for  us.  That  must 
be  accepted  if  we  are  to  get  at  the  truth  of  the 
matter.  A  great  doctrine  that  dominates  our 
lives,  that  lays  down  a  rigid  course  of  action, 
that  involves  self-denial,  hard  struggles,  en- 
durance for  years,  and  possibly  death  before 
the  goal  is  reached — any  such  doctrine  must  be 
capable  of  having  its  truth  demonstrated  by  the 
discovery  of  principles  that  govern  and  justify 
it.  Otherwise  we  cannot  yield  it  our  allegiance. 
Let  us  to  the  examination,  then;  we  shall  find 
it  soul-stirring  and  inspiring.  We  must  be  pre- 
pared, however,  to  abandon  many  deeply-rooted 
prejudices ;  if  we  are  unwilling,  we  must  aban- 
don the  truth.  But  we  will  find  courage  in 
moving  forward,  and  will  triumph  in  the  end, 
by  keeping  in  mind  at  all  times  that  the  end  of 
freedom  is  to  realise  the  salvation  and  happi- 


SEPARATION  15 

ness  of  all  peoples,  to  make  the  world,  and  not 
any  selfish  corner  of  it,  a  more  beautiful  dwell- 
ing-place for  men. 

Treated  in  this  light,  the  question  becomes 
for  all  earnest  men  great  and  arresting.  Our 
friend,  who  may  have  smiled,  will  discuss  it 
readily  now.  Yet  he  may  not  be  convinced; 
he  may  point  his  finger  over  the  wasted  land 
and  contrast  its  weakness  with  its  opponents' 
strength,  and  conclude:  **Your  philosophy  is 
beautiful,  but  only  a  dream.''  He  is  at  least 
impressed;  that  is  a  point  gained;  and  we  may 
induce  him  to  come  further  and  further  till  he 
adopts  the  great  principle  we  defend. 

iii 

His  difficulty  now  is  the  common  error  that 
a  man's  work  for  his  country  should  be  based 
on  the  assumption  that  it  should  bear  full  ef- 
fect in  his  own  time.  This  is  most  certainly 
false;  for  a  man's  life  is  counted  by  years,  a 
nation's  by  centuries,  and  as  work  for  the  na- 
tion should  be  directed  to  bringing  her  to  full 
maturity  in  the  coming  time,  a  man  must  be 
prepared  to  labour  for  an  end  that  may  be  re- 
alised only  in  another  generation.     Consider 


16  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

how  he  disposes  his  plans  for  his  individual 
life.  His  boyhood  and  youth  are  directed  that 
his  manhood  and  prime  may  be  the  golden  age 
of  life,  full-blooded  and  strong-minded,  with 
clear  vision  and  great  purpose  and  high  hope, 
all  justified  by  some  definite  achievement.  A 
man's  prime  is  great  as  his  earlier  years  have 
been  well  directed  and  concentrated.  In  the 
early  years  the  ground  is  prepared  and  the 
seed  sown  for  the  splendid  period  of  full 
development.  So  it  is  with  the  nation:  we 
must  prepare  the  ground  and  sow  the  seed  for 
the  rich  ripeness  of  maturity;  and  bearing  io 
mind  that  the  maturity  of  the  nation  will  come 
not  in  one  generation  but  after  many  genera, 
tions,  we  must  be  prepared  to  work  in  the 
knowledge  that  we  prepare  for  a  future  that 
only  other  generations  will  enjoy.  It  does  not 
mean  that  we  shall  work  in  loneliness,  cheered 
by  no  vision  of  the  Promised  Land;  we  may 
even  reach  the  Promised  Land  in  our  time, 
though  we  cannot  explore  all  its  great  wonders : 
that  mil  be  the  delight  of  ages.  But  some  will 
never  survive  to  celebrate  the  great  victory 
that  will  establish  our  independence;  yet  they 
shall  not  go  without  reward;  for  to  them  will 


SEPARATION  17 

come  a  vision  of  soul  of  the  future  triumph, 
an  exaltation  of  soul  in  the  consciousness  of 
labouring  for  that  future,  an  exultation  of  soul 
in  the  knowledge  that  once  its  purpose  is 
grasped,  no  tyranny  can  destroy  it,  that  the 
destiny  of  our  country  is  assured,  and  her 
dominion  will  endure  for  ever.  Let  any  argu- 
ment be  raised  against  one  such  pioneer — ^he 
knows  this  in  his  heart,  and  it  makes  him  in- 
domitable, and  it  is  he  who  is  proven  to  be 
wise  in  the  end.  He  judges  the  past  clearly, 
and  through  the  crust  of  things  he  discerns  the 
truth  in  his  own  time,  and  puts  his  work  in 
true  relation  to  the  great  experience  of  life, 
and  he  is  justified;  for  ultimately  his  work 
opens  out,  matures,  and  bears  fruit  a  hundred- 
fold. It  may  not  be  in  a  day,  but  when  his 
hand  falls  dead,  his  glory  becomes  quickly 
manifest.  He  has  lived  a  beautiful  life,  and 
has  left  a  beautiful  field;  he  has  sacrificed  the 
hour  to  give  service  for  all  time ;  he  has  entered 
the  company  of  the  great,  and  with  them  he  will 
be  remembered  forever.  He  is  the  practical  man 
in  the  true  sense.  But  there  is  the  other  self- 
styled  practical  man,  who  thinks  all  this  pro- 
ceeding foolish,  and  cries  out  for  the  expedient 


18  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

of  the  hour.  Has  he  ever  realised  the  promise 
of  his  proposals?  No,  he  is  the  most  inefficient 
person  who  has  ever  walked  the  earth.  But  for 
a  saving  consideration  let  him  go,  contemplate 
the  wasted  efforts  of  the  opportunist  in  every 
generation,  and  the  broken  projects  scattered 
through  the  desert-places  of  history. 

iv 

Still  one  will  look  out  on  the  grim  things  of 
the  hour,  and  hypnotised  by  the  hour  will  cry : 
*^See  the  strength  of  the  British  Empire,  see 
our  wasted  state;  your  hope  is  vain."  Let 
him  consider  this  clear  truth:  peoples  endure; 
empires  perish.  "Where  are  now  the  empires 
of  antiquity?  And  the  empires  of  to-day  have 
the  seed  of  dissolution  in  them.  But  the  peoples 
that  saw  the  old  empires  rise  and  hold  sway 
are  represented  now  in  their  posterity;  the 
tyrannies  they  knew  are  dead  and  done  with. 
The  peoples  endured;  the  empires  perished; 
and  the  nations  of  the  earth  of  this  day  will 
survive  in  posterity  when  the  empires  that  now 
contend  for  mastery  are  gathered  into  the  dust, 
with  all  dead,  bad  things.    We  shall  endure; 


SEPARATION  19 

and  the  measure  of  our  faith  will  be  the  meas- 
ure of  our  achievement  and  of  the  greatness  of 
our  future  place. 


Is  it  not  the  dream  of  earnest  men  of  all 
parties  to  have  an  end  to  our  long  war,  a  peace 
final  and  honourable,  wherein  the  soul  of  the 
country  can  rest,  revive  and  express  itself;, 
wherein  poetry,  music  and  art  will  pour  out  in 
uninterrupted  joy,  the  joy  of  deliverance,  flash- 
ing in  splendour  and  superabundant  in  volume, 
evidence  of  long  suppression?  This  is  the 
dream  of  us  all.  But  who  can  hope  for  this 
final  peace  while  any  part  of  our  independence 
is  denied?  For,  while  we  are  connected  in  any 
shape  with  the  British  Empire  the  connection 
implies  some  dependence;  this  cannot  be  gain- 
said; and  who  is  so  foolish  as  to  expect  that 
there  will  be  no  collision  with  the  British  Par- 
liament, while  there  is  this  connection  imply- 
ing dependence  on  the  British  Empire? 
If  such  a  one  exists  he  goes  against  all  ex- 
perience and  all  history.  On  either  side  of  the 
connection  will  be  two  interests — the  English 


20  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

interest  and  the  Irisli  interest,  and  they  will 
be  always  at  variance.  Consider  how  parties 
within  a  single  state  are  at  variance,  Con- 
servatives and  Eadicals,  in  any  country 
in  Europe.  The  proposals  of  one  are  al- 
ways insidious,  dangerous  or  reactionary, 
as  the  case  may  be,  in  the  eyes  of  the  other; 
and  in  no  case  will  the  parties  agree;  they 
will  at  times  even  charge  each  other  with 
treachery;  there  is  never  peace.  It  is  the  rule 
of  party  war.  AVho,  then,  can  hope  for  peace 
where  into  the  strife  is  imported  a  race  differ- 
ence, where  the  division  is  not  of  party  but  of 
people?  That  is  in  truth  the  vain  hope.  And 
be  it  borne  in  mind  the  race  difference  is  not 
due  to  our  predominating  Gaelic  stock,  but  to 
the  separate  countries  and  to  distinct  house- 
holds in  the  human  race.  If  we  were  all  of 
English  extraction  the  difference  would  still 
exist.  There  is  the  historic  case  of  the  Ameri- 
can States;  it  is  easy  to  understand.  When  a 
man's  children  come  of  age,  they  set  up  estab- 
lishments for  themselves,  and  live  independ- 
ently; they  are  always  bound  by  affection  to 
the  parent-home ;  but  if  the  father  try  to  inter- 


SEPARATION  21 

fere  in  the  house  of  a  son,  and  govern  it  in  any 
detail,  there  will  be  strife.  It  is  hardly 
necessary  to  labour  the  point.  If  all  the 
people  in  this  country  were  of  English  ex- 
traction and  England  were  to  claim  on  that 
account  that  there  should  be  a  connection 
with  her,  and  that  it  should  dominate  the  peo- 
ple here,  there  would  be  strife;  and  it  could 
have  but  one  end — separation.  We  would,  of 
whatever  extraction,  have  lived  in  natural 
neighbourliness  with  England,  but  she  chose  to 
trap  and  harass  us,  and  it  will  take  long  gen- 
erations of  goodwill  to  wipe  out  some  memo- 
ries. Again,  and  yet  again,  let  there  be  no  con- 
fusion of  thought  as  to  this  final  peace ;  it  will 
never  come  while  there  is  any  formal  link  of 
dependence.  The  spirit  of  our  manhood  will 
always  flame  up  to  resent  and  resist  that  link. 
Separation  and  equality  may  restore  ties  of 
friendship ;  nothing  else  can :  for  individual  de- 
velopment and  general  goodwill  is  the  lesson 
of  human  life.  We  can  be  good  neighbours, 
but  most  dangerous  enemies,  and  in  the  coming 
time  our  hereditary  foe  cannot  aiford  to  have 
us  on  her  flank.    The  present  is  promising;  the 


22  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

future  is  developing  for  us :  we  shall  reach  the 
goal.  Let  us  see  to  it  that  we  shall  be  found 
worthy. 

vi 

That  we  be  found  worthy;  let  this  be  borne 
in  mind.  For  it  is  true  that  here  only  is  our 
great  danger.  If  with  our  freedom  to  win,  our 
country  to  open  up,  our  future  to  develop,  we 
learn  no  lesson  from  the  mistakes  of  nations 
and  live  no  better  life  than  the  great  Powers, 
we  shall  have  missed  a  golden  opportunity,  and 
shall  be  one  of  the  failures  of  history.  So  far, 
on  superficial  judgment  we  have  been  accounted 
a  failure;  though  the  simple  maintenance  of 
our  fight  for  centuries  has  been  in  itself  a 
splendid  triumph.  But  then  only  would  we 
have  failed  in  the  great  sense,  when  we  had 
got  our  field  and  wasted  it,  as  the  nations 
around  us  waste  theirs  to-day.  We  led  Europe 
once ;  let  us  lead  again  with  a  beautiful  realisa- 
tion of  freedom;  and  let  us  beware  of  the  de- 
lusion that  is  abroad,  that  we  seek  nothing 
more  than  to  be  free  of  restraint,  as  England, 
France  and  Germany  are  to-day;  let  us  beware 
of  the  delusion  that  if  we  can  scramble  through 


SEPARATION  23 

anyhow  to  freedom  we  can  then  begin  to  live 
worthily,  but  that  in  the  interval  we  cannot  be 
too  particular.  That  is  the  grim  shadow  that 
darkens  our  path,  that  falls  between  us  and  a 
beautiful  human  life,  and  may  drive  us  to  that 
tiger-like  existence  that  makes  havoc  through 
the  world  to-day.  Let  us  beware.  I  do  not  say 
we  must  settle  now  all  disputes,  such  as  capi- 
tal, labour,  and  others,  but  that  everyone 
should  realise  a  duty  to  be  high-minded  and 
honourable  in  action;  to  regard  his  fellow  not 
as  a  man  to  be  circumvented,  but  as  a  brother 
to  be  sympathised  with  and  uplifted.  Neither 
kingdom,  republic,  nor  commune  can  regen- 
erate us ;  it  is  in  the  beautiful  mind  and  a  great 
ideal  we  shall  find  the  charter  of  our  freedom ; 
and  this  is  the  philosophy  that  it  is  most  es- 
sential to  preach.  "We  must  not  ignore  it  now, 
for  how  we  work  to-day  will  decide  how  we 
shall  live  to-morrow;  and  if  we  are  not  scru- 
pulous in  our  struggle,  we  shall  not  be  pure  in 
our  future  state.  I  know  there  are  many  who 
are  not  indifferent  to  high-minded  action,  but 
who  live  in  dread  of  an  exacting  code  of  life, 
fearing  it  will  harass  our  movements  and  make 
success  impossible.     Let  us  correct  this  mis- 


24  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

take  with  the  reflection  that  the  time  is  shap- 
ing" for  ns.  The  power  of  our  country  is 
strengthening;  the  grip  of  the  enemy  is  slack- 
ening; every  extension  of  local  government  is 
a  step  nearer  to  independent  government;  the 
people  are  not  'satisfied  with  an  instalment; 
their  capacity  for  further  power  is  developed, 
and  they  are  equipped  with  weapons  to  win  it. 
Even  in  our  time  have  we  made  great  advance. 
Let  one  fact  alone  make  this  evident.  Less  than 
twenty  years  ago  the  Irish  language  was  de- 
spised; to-day  the  movement  to  restore  it  is 
strong  enough  to  have  it  made  compulsory  in 
the  National  University.  Can  anyone  doubt 
from  this  sign  of  the  times  alone  that  the  hour 
points  to  freedom,  and  we  are  on  the  road  to 
victory?  That  we  shall  win  our  freedom  I  have 
no  doubt ;  that  we  shall  use  it  well  I  am  not  so 
certain,  for  see  how  sadly  misused  it  is  abroad 
through  the  world  to-day.  That  should  be  our 
final  consideration,  and  we  should  make  this  a 
resolution — our  future  history  shall  be  more 
glorious  than  that  of  any  contemporary  state. 
We  shall  look  for  prosperity,  no  doubt,  but  let 
our  enthusiasm  be  for  beautiful  living ;  we  shall 
build  up  our  strength,  yet  not  for  conquest,  but 


SEPARATION  25 

as  a  pledge  of  brotherhood  and  a  defence  for  the 
weaker  ones  of  the  earth;  we  shall  take  pride 
in  our  institutions,  not  only  as  gii»aranteeang  the 
stability  of  the  state,  but  as  securing  the  happi- 
ness of  the  citizens,  and  we  shall  lead  Europe 
again  a-s  we  led  it  of  old.  We  shall  rouse  the 
world  from  a  wicked  dream  of  material  greed, 
of  tyrannical  power,  of  corrupt  and  callous  poli- 
tics to  the  wonder  of  a  regenerated  spirit,  a  new 
and  beautiful  dream ;  and  we  shall  establish  our 
state  in  a  true  freedom  that  will  endure  for 
ever. 


CHAPTER  ni 

MORAL  FORCE 


ONE  of  the  great  difficulties  in  discussing 
any  question  of  importance  in  Ireland  is 
that  words  have  been  twisted  from  their  orig- 
inal and  true  significance,  and  if  we  are  to  have 
any  effective  discussion,  we  must  first  make 
clear  the  meaning  of  our  terms.  Love  of  country 
is  quoted  to  tolerate  every  insidious  error  of 
weakness,  but  if  it  has  any  meaning  it  should 
make  men  strong-souled  and  resolute  in 
every  crisis.  Men  working  for  the  extension  of 
Local  Government  toast  '* Ireland  a  Nation,'' 
and  extol  Home  Rule  as  independence ;  but  while 
there  is  any  restraint  on  us  by  a  neighbour- 
ing Power,  acknowledged  superior,  there  is  de- 
pendence to  that  extent.  Straightway,  those 
who  fight  for  independence,  shift  their  ground 
and  plead  for  absolute  independence,  but  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  qualified  independence ;  and 

26 


MORAL  FORCE  27 

when  we  abandon  the  simple  name  to  men  of 
half -measures,  we  prejudice  our  cause  and  con- 
fuse the  issue.  Then  there  is  the  irreconcilable 
— ^how  is  he  regarded  in  the  common  cry?  Al- 
ways an  impossible,  wild,  foolish  person,  and 
we  frequently  resent  the  name  and  try  to  ex- 
plain his  reasonableness  instead  of  exulting  in 
his  strength,  for  the  true  irreconcilable  is  the 
simple  lover  of  the  truth.  Among  men  fighting 
for  freedom  some  start  up  in  their  plea  for  lib- 
erty, pointing  to  the  prosperity  of  England, 
France,  and  Germany,  and  when  we  debate  the 
means  by  which  they  won  their  power,  we  find 
our  friends  draw  no  distinction  between  true 
freedom  and  licentious  living;  but  it  would  be 
better  to  be  crushed  under  the  wheels  of  great 
Powers  than  to  prosper  by  their  example.  And 
so,  through  every  discussion  we  must  make 
clear  the  meaning  of  our  terms.  There  is  one 
I  would  treat  particularly  now.  Of  all  the  terms 
glibly  flung  about  in  every  debate  not  one  has 
been  so  confused  as  Moral  Force. 

ii 

Since  the  time  of  O'Connell  the  cry  Moral 
Force  has  been  used  persistently  to  cover  up  the 


28  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

weakness  of  every  politician  who  was  afraid  or 
unwilling  to  fight  for  the  whole  rights  of  his 
country,  and  confusion  has  been  the  conse- 
quence. I  am  not  going  here  to  raise  old  de- 
bates over  O'Connell's  memory,  who,  when  all 
is  said,  was  a  great  man  and  a  patriot.  Let 
those  of  us  w^ho  read  with  burning  eyes  of  the 
shameless  fiasco  of  Clontarf  recall  for  full  judg- 
ment the  O'Connell  of  earlier  years,  when  his 
unwearied  heart  was  fighting  the  uphill  fight  of 
the  pioneer.  But  a  great  need  now  is  to  chal- 
lenge his  later  influence,  which  is  overshadowing 
us  to  our  undoing.  For  we  find  men  of  this  time 
who  lack  moral  courage  fighting  in  the  name  of 
moral  force,  while  those  who  are  pre-eminent 
as  men  of  moral  fibre  are  dismissed  with  a  smile 
— physical-force  men.  To  make  clear  the  con- 
fusion we  need  only  to  distinguish  moral  force 
from  moral  weakness.  There  is  the  distinction. 
Call  it  what  we  will,  moral  courage,  moral 
strength,  moral  force;  we  all  recognize  that 
great  virtue  of  mind  and  heart  that  keeps  a  man 
unconquerable  above  every  power  of  brute 
strength.  I  call  it  moral  force,  which  is  a  good 
name,  and  I  make  the  definition :  a  man  of  moral 
force  is  he  who,  seeing  a  thing  to  be  right  and 


MORAL  FORCE  29 

•essential  and  claiming  his  allegiance,  stands  for 
it  as  for  tlie  truth,  unheeding  any  consequence. 
It  is  not  that  he  is  a  wild  person,  utterly  reckless 
of  all  mad  possibilities,  filled  with  a  madder 
hope,  and  indifferent  to  any  havoc  that  may 
ensue.  No,  but  it  is  a  first  principle  of  his,  that 
a  true  thing  is  a  good  thing,  and  from  a  good 
thing  rightly  pursued  can  follow  no  bad  conse- 
quence. And  he  faces  every  possible  develop- 
ment with  conscience  at  rest — it  may  be  with 
trepidation  for  his  own  courage  in  some  great 
ordeal,  but  for  the  nobility  of  the  cause  and  the 
beauty  of  the  result  that  must  ensue,  always 
with  serene  faith.  And  soon  the  trepidation  for 
himself  passes,  for  a  great  cause  always  makes 
great  men,  and  many  who  set  out  in  hesitation 
die  heroes.  This  it  is  that  explains  the  strange 
and  wonderful  buoyancy  of  men,  standing  for 
great  ideals,  so  little  understood  of  others  of 
weaker  mould.  The  soldier  of  freedom  knows 
he  is  forward  in  the  battle  of  Truth,  he  knows 
his  victory  will  make  for  a  world  beautiful,  that 
if  he  must  inflict  or  endure  pain,  it  is  for  the 
regeneration  of  those  who  suffer,  the  emancipa- 
tion of  those  in  chains,  the  exaltation  of  those 
who  die,  and  the  security  and  happiness  of  gen- 


30  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

erations  yet  unborn.  For  the  strength  that  will 
support  a  man  through  every  phase  of  this 
struggle  a  strong  and  courageous  mind  is  the 
primary  need — in  a  word,  Moral  Force.  A  man 
who  will  be  brave  only  if  tramping  with  a  legion 
will  fail  in  courage  if  called  to  stand  in  the 
breach  alone.  And  it  must  be  clear  to  all  that 
till  Ireland  can  again  summon  her  banded 
armies  there  will  be  abundant  need  for  men 
who  will  stand  the  single  test.  'Tis  the  bravest 
test,  the  noblest  test,  and  'tis  the  test  that  offers 
the  surest  and  greatest  victory.  For  one  armed 
man  cannot  resist  a  multitude,  nor  one  army 
conquer  countless  legions ;  but  not  all  the  armies 
of  all  the  Empires  of  earth  can  crush  the  spirit 
of  one  true  man.    And  that  one  man  will  prevail. 

iii 

But  so  much  have  we  felt  the  need  of  resist- 
ing every  slavish  tendency  that  found  refuge 
under  the  name  of  Moral  Force,  that  those  of 
us  who  would  vindicate  our  manhood  cried 
wildly  out  again  for  the  physical  test;  and  we 
cried  it  long  and  repeatedly  the  more  we 
smarted  under  the  meanness  of  retrograde 
times.    But  the  time  is  again  inspiring,  and  the 


MORAL  FORCE  31 

air  mu&t  now  be  cleared.  We  have  set  up  for 
the  final  test  of  the  man  of  unconquerable  spirit 
that  test  which  is  the  first  and  last  argument 
of  tyranny — recourse  to  brute  strength.  We 
have  surrounded  with  fictitious  glory  the  car- 
nage of  the  battlefields;  we  have  shouted  of 
wading  through  our  enemies  *  blood,  as  if  bloody 
fields  were  beautiful ;  we  have  been  contemptu- 
ous of  peace,  as  if  every  war  were  exhilarating ; 
but,  ^^War  is  hell,''  said  a  famous  general  in 
the  field.  This,  of  course,  is  exaggeration,  but 
there  is  a  grim  element  of  truth  in  the  warning 
that  must  be  kept  in  mind  at  all  times.  If  one 
among  us  still  would  resent  being  asked  to 
forego  what  he  thinks  a  rightful  need  of  ven- 
geance, let  him  look  into  himself.  Let  him  con- 
sider his  feelings  on  the  death  of  some  noto- 
rious traitor  or  criminal;  not  satisfaction,  but 
awe,  is  the  uppermost  fueling  in  his  heart. 
Death  sobers  us  all.  But  away  from  death  this 
may  be  unconvincing;  and  one  m-ay  still  shout 
of  the  glory  of  floating  the  ship  of  freedom  in 
the  blood  of  the  enemy.  I  give  him  pause.  He 
may  still  correct  his  philosophy  in  view  of  the 
horror  of  a  street  accident  or  the  brutality  of  a 
prize-fight. 


32  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

iv 

But  war  must  be  faced  and  blood  must  be 
slied,  not  gleefully,  but  as  a  terrible  necessity, 
because  there  are  moral  horrors  worse  than  any 
physical  horror,  because  freedom  is  indispen- 
sable for  a  soul  erect,  and  freedom  must  be  had 
at  any  cost  of  suffering;  the  soul  is  greater  than 
the  body.  This  is  the  justification  of  war.  If 
hesitating  to  undertake  it  means  the  overthrow 
of  liberty  possessed,  or  the  lying  passive  in 
slavery  already  accomplished,  then  it  is  the  duty 
of  every  man  to  fight  if  he  is  standing,  or  revolt 
if  he  is  down.  And  he  must  make  no  peace  till 
freedom  is  assured,  for  the  moral  plague  that 
eats  up  a  people  whose  independence  is  lost  is 
more  calamitous  than  any  physical  rending  of 
limb  from  limb.  The  body  is  a  passing  phase ; 
the  spirit  is  immortal;  and  the  degradation  of 
that  immortal  part  of  man  is  the  great  tragedy 
of  life.  Consider  all  the  mean  things  and  de- 
basing tendencies  that  wither  up  a  people  in  a 
state  of  slavery.  There  are  the  bribes  of  those 
in  power  to  maintain  their  ascendency,  the  bar- 
ter of  every  principle  by  time-servers ;  the  cor- 
ruption of  public  life  and  the  apathy  of  private 


MORAL  FORCE  33 

life;  the  hard  struggle  of  those  of  high  ideals, 
the  conflict  with  all  ignoble  practices,  the  wear- 
ing down  of  patience,  and  in  the  end  the  quiet 
abandoning  of  the  flag  once  bravely  flourished ; 
then  the  increased  numbers  of  the  apathetic 
and  the  general  gloom,  depression,  and  despair 
— everywhere  a  land  decaying.  Viciousness, 
meanness,  cowardice,  intolerance,  every  bad 
thing  arises  like  a  weed  in  the  night  and  blights 
the  land  where  freedom  is  dead ;  and  the  aspect 
of  that  land  and  the  soul  of  that  people  become 
spectacles  of  disgust,  revolting  and  terrible, 
terrible  for  the  high  things  degraded  and  the 
great  destinies  imperilled.  It  would  be  less  ter- 
rible if  an  earthquake  split  the  land  in  two,  and 
sank  it  into  the  ocean.  To  avert  the  moral 
plague  of  slavery  men  fly  to  arms,  notwith- 
standing the  physical  consequence,  and  those 
who  set  more  count  by  the  physical  consequences 
cannot  by  that  avert  them,  for  the  moral  dis- 
ease is  followed  by  physical  wreck — if  delayed 
still  inevitable.  So,  physical  force  is  justified, 
not  per  se,  but  as  an  expression  of  moral  force ; 
where  it  is  unsupported  by  the  higher  principle 
it  is  evil  incarnate.  The  true  antithesis  is  not 
between  moral  force  and  physical  force,  but 


34  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

between  moral  force  and  moral  weakness.  That 
is  the  fundamental  distinction  being  ignored  on 
all  sides,  ^lien  the  time  demands  and  the  oc- 
casion offers,  it  is  imperative  to  have  recourse 
to  arms,  but  in  that  terrible  crisis  we  must  pre- 
serve our  balance.  If  we  leap  forward  for  our 
enemies'  blood,  glorifying  brute  force,  we  set 
up  the  standard  of  the  tyrant  and  heap  up  in- 
famy for  ourselves;  on  the  other  hand,  if  we 
hesitate  to  take  the  stem  action  demanded,  we 
fail  in  strength  of  soul,  and  let  slip  the  dogs  of 
war  to  every  extreme  of  weakness  and  wild- 
ness,  to  create  depra^dty  and  horror  that  will 
ultimately  destroy  us.  A  true  soldier  of  free- 
dom will  not  hesitate  to  strike  vigorously  and 
strike  home,  knowing  that  on  his  resolution  will 
depend  the  restoration  and  defence  of  liberty. 
But  he  will  always  remember  that  restraint  is 
the  great  attribute  that  separates  man  from 
beast,  that  retaliation  is  the  vicious  resource 
of  the  tyrant  and  the  slave ;  that  magnanimity 
is  the  splendour  of  manhood;  and  he  will  re- 
member that  he  strikes  not  at  his  enemy's  life, 
but  at  his  misdeed,  that  in  destroying  the  mis- 
deed, he  makes  not  only  for  his  o^vn  freedom, 
but  even  for  his  enemy's  regeneration.     This 


MORAL  FORCE  35 

may  be  for  most  of  us  perhaps  too  great  a 
dream.  But  for  Mm  who  reads  into  the  heart 
of  the  question  and  for  the  true  shaping  of  his 
course  it  will  stand ;  he  will  never  forget,  even  in 
the  thickest  fight,  that  the  enemy  of  to-day  and 
yesterday  may  be  the  genuine  comrade  of  to- 
morrow. 


If  it  is  imperative  that  we  should  fix  unal- 
terably our  guiding  principles  before  we  are 
plunged  unprepared  into  the  fight,  it  is  even 
more  urgent  we  should  clear  the  mind  to  the 
truth  now,  for  we  have  fallen  into  the  danger- 
ous habit  of  deferring  important  questions  on 
the  plea  that  the  time  is  not  ripe.  In  a  word,  we 
lack  moral  strength;  and  so,  that  virtue  that 
is  to  safeguard  us  in  time  of  war  is  the  great 
virtue  that  will  redeem  us  in  time  of  servility. 
It  need  not  be  further  laboured  that  in  a  state 
enslaved  every  mean  thing  flourishes.  The  ad- 
mission of  it  makes  clear  that  in  such  a  state  it 
is  more  important  that  every  evil  be  resisted. 
In  a  normal  condition  of  liberty  many  tempo- 
rary evils  may  arise;  yet  they  are  not  danger- 
ous— in  the  glow  of  a  people  ^s  freedom  they 


4 

36  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

waste  and  die  as  disease  dies  in  the  sunlight. 
But  where  independence  is  suppressed  and  a 
people  degenerate,  a  little  evil  is  in  an  atmos- 
phere to  grow,  and  it  grows  and  expands;  and 
evils  multiply  and  destroy.  That  is  why  men  of 
high  spirit  working  to  regenerate  a  fallen  peo- 
ple must  be  more  insistent  to  watch  every  little 
defect  and  weak  tendency  that  in  a  braver  time 
would  leave  the  soul  unruffled.  That  is  why 
every  difficulty,  once  it  becomes  evident,  is  ripe 
for  settlement.  To  evade  the  issue  is  to  invite 
disaster.  Eesolution  alone  will  save  us  in  our 
many  dangers.  But  a  plea  for  policy  will  be 
raised  to  evade  a  particular  and  urgent  ques- 
tion. ** People  won't  unite  on  it";  that's  one 
cry.  ** Ignorant  people  will  be  led  astray''; 
that's  another  cry.  There  is  always  some  ex- 
cuse ready  for  evasion.  The  difficulty  is,  that 
every  party  likes  some  part  of  the  truth;  no 
party  likes  it  all ;  but  we  must  have  it  all,  every 
line  of  it.  We  want  no  popular  editions  and  no 
philosophic  selections — the  truth,  the  whole 
truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth.  This  must  be 
the  rule  for  everything  concerning  which  a  man 
has  a  public  duty  and  ought  to  have  a  public 
opinion.    There  is  a  dangerous  tendency  gain- 


MORAL  FORCE  37 

ing  ground  of  slurring  over  vital  things  because 
the  settlement  of  them  involves  great  difficulty, 
and  may  involve  great  danger;  but  whatever 
the  issue  is  we  must  face  it.  It  is  a  step  forward 
to  bring  men  together  on  points  of  agreement, 
but  men  come  thus  together  not  without  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  suspicion.  In  a  fight  for  free- 
dom that  latent  suspicion  would  become  a  mas- 
tering fear  to  seize  and  destroy  us.  We  must 
allay  it  now.  We  must  lead  men  to  discuss 
points  of  difference  with  respect,  forbearance, 
and  courage,  to  find  a  consistent  way  of  life  for 
all  that  will  inspire  confidence  in  all.  At  pres- 
ent we  inspire  confidence  in  no  one ;  it  would  be 
be  fatal  to  hide  the  fact.  This  is  a  necessary 
step  to  bringing  matters  to  a  head.  We  cannot 
hope  to  succeed  all  at  once,  but  we  must  keep 
the  great  aim  in  view.  There  will  be  objections 
on  all  sides;  from  the  blase  man  of  the  world, 
concerned  only  for  his  comfort,  the  mean  man 
of  business  concerned  only  for  his  profits,  the 
man  of  policy  always  looking  for  a  middle  way, 
a  certain  type  of  religious  pessimist  who  always 
spies  danger  in  every  proposal,  and  many 
others.  We  need  not  consider  the  comfort  of 
the  first  nor  the  selfishness  of  the  second;  but 


38  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

the  third  and  fonrth  require  a  word.  The  man 
of  policy  offers  me  his  judgment  instead  of  a 
clear  consideration  of  the  truth.  'Tis  he  who 
says:  *'You  and  I  can  discuss  certain  things 
privately.  We  are  educated;  we  understand. 
Ignorant  people  can't  understand,  and  you  only 
make  mischief  in  supposing  it.  It's  not  wise.'' 
To  him  I  reply:  *'You  are  afraid  to  speak  the 
whole  truth;  I  am  afraid  to  hide  it.  You  are 
filled  with  the  danger  to  ignorant  people  of  hav- 
ing out  everything;  I  am  filled  with  the  danger 
to  you  of  suppressing  anything.  I  do  not  pro- 
pose to  you  that  you  can  with  the  whole  truth 
make  ignorant  people  profound,  but  I  say  you 
must  have  the  whole  truth  out  for  your  own 
salvation."  Here  is  the  danger:  we  see  life 
within  certain  limitations,  and  cannot  see  the 
possibly  infinite  significance  of  something  we 
would  put  by.  It  is  of  grave  importance  that 
we  see  it  rightly,  and  in  the  difficulties  of  the 
case  our  only  safe  course  is  to  take  the  evidence 
life  offers  without  prejudice  and  without  fear, 
and  write  it  down.  When  the  matter  is  grave, 
let  it  be  taken  with  all  the  mature  deliberation 
and  care  its  gravity  demands,  but  once  the  evi- 
dence is  clearly  seen,  let  us  for  our  salvation 


MORAL  FORCE  39 

write  it  down.  For  any  man  to  set  his  petty 
judgment  above  the  need  for  setting  down  the 
truth  is  madness ;  and  I  refuse  to  do  it.  There 
is  our  religious  pessimist  to  consider.  To  him 
I  say  I  take  religion  more  seriously.  I  take  it 
not  to  evade  the  problems  of  life,  but  to  solve 
them.  When  I  tell  him  to  have  no  fear,  this 
is  not  my  indifference  to  the  issue,  but  a  tribute 
to  the  faith  that  is  in  me.  Let  us  be  careful  to 
do  the  right  thing;  then  fear  is  inconsistent 
with  faith.  Nor  can  I  understand  the  other 
attitude.  Two  thousand  years  after  the  preach- 
ing of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  we  are  to  go 
about  whispering  to  one  another  what  is  wise. 

vi 

To  conclude :  Now,  and  in  every  phase  of  the 
coming  struggle,  the  strong  mind  is  a  greater 
need  than  the  strong  hand.  We  must  be  pas- 
sionate, but  the  mind  must  guide  and  govern 
our  passion.  In  the  aberrations  of  the  weak 
mind  decrying  resistance,  let  us  not  lose  our 
balance  and  defy  brute  strength.  At  a  later 
stage  we  must  consider  the  ethics  of  resistance 
to  the  Civil  Power;  the  significance  of  what  is 
written  now  will  be  more  apparent  then.    Let 


40  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

the  cultivation  of  a  brave,  high,  spirit  be  our 
great  task;  it  will  make  of  each  man's  soul  an 
unassailable  fortress.  Armies  may  fail,  but  it 
resists  for  ever.  The  body  it  informs  may  be 
crushed ;  the  spirit  in  passing  breathes  on  other 
souls,  and  other  hearts  are  fired  to  action,  and 
the  fight  goes  on  to  victory.  To  the  man  whose 
mind  is  true  and  resolute  ultimate  victory  is 
assured.  No  sophistry  can  sap  his  resistance; 
no  weakness  can  tempt  him  to  savage  reprisals. 
He  will  neither  abandon  his  heritage  nor  poison 
his  nature.  And  in  every  crisis  he  is  steadfast, 
in  every  issue  justified.  Rejoice,  then,  good 
comrades ;  our  souls  are  still  our  own.  Through 
the  coldness  and  depression  of  the  time  there 
has  lightened  a  flash  of  the  old  fire ;  the  old  en- 
thusiasm, warm  and  passionate,  is  again  stir- 
ring us ;  we  are  forward  to  uphold  our  country's 
right,  to  fight  for  her  liberty,  and  to  justify  our 
own  generation.  We  shall  conquer.  Let  the 
enemy  count  his  dreadnoughts  and  number  off 
his  legions — ^where  are  now  the  legions  of  Rome 
and  Carthage?  And  the  Spirit  of  Freedom  they 
challenged  is  alive  and  animating  the  young 
nations  to-day.  Hold  we  our  heads  high,  then, 
and  we  shall  bear  our  flag  bravely  through  every 


MORAL  FORCE  41 

fight.  Persistent,  consistent,  straightforward, 
and  fearless,  so  shall  we  discipline  the  soul  to 
great  deeds,  and  make  it  indomitable.  In  the 
indomitable  soul  lies  the  assurance  of  our  ulti- 
mate victory. 


CHAPTER  IV 

BROTHERS  AND  ENEMIES 


OUR  enemies  are  brothers  from  who  we 
are  estranged.  Here  is  the  fundamental 
truth  that  explains  and  justifies  our  hope  of 
re-establishing  a  real  patriotism  among  all 
parties  in  Ireland,  and  a  final  peace  with  our 
ancient  enemy  of  England.  It  is  the  view  of 
prejudice  that  makes  of  the  various  sections  of 
our  people  hopelessly  hostile  divisions,  and 
raises  up  a  barrier  of  hate  between  Ireland  and 
England  that  can  never  be  surmounted.  If  Ire- 
land is  to  be  regenerated,  we  must  have  internal 
unity;  if  the  world  is  to  be  regenerated,  we 
must  have  world-wide  unity — not  of  govern- 
ment, but  of  brotherhood.  To  this  great  end 
every  individual,  every  nation  has  a  duty;  and 
that  the  end  may  not  be  missed  we  must  con- 
tinually turn  for  the  correction  of  our  philoso- 

42 


BROTHERS  AND  ENEMIES  43 

phy  to  reflecting  on  the  common  origin  of  the 
human  race,  on  the  beauty  of  the  world  that  is 
the  heritage  of  all,  our  common  hopes  and  fears, 
and  in  the  greatest  sense  the  mutual  interests 
of  the  peoples  of  the  earth.  If,  unheeding  this, 
any  people  make  their  part  of  the  earth  ugly 
with  acts  of  tyranny  and  baseness,  they  threaten 
the  security  of  all ;  if  unconscious  of  it,  a  people 
always  high-spirited  are  plunged  into  war  with 
a  neighbour,  now  a  foe,  and  yet  fight,  as  their 
nature  compels  them,  bravely  and  magnani- 
mously, they  but  drive  their  enemy  back  to  the 
field  of  a  purer  life,  and,  perhaps,  to  the  realisa- 
tion of  a  more  beautiful  existence,  a  dream  to 
which  his  stagnant  soul  steeped  in  ugliness 
could  never  rise. 

ii 

On  the  road  to  freedom  every  alliance  will  be 
sternly  tried.  Internal  friendship  will  not  be 
made  in  a  day,  nor  external  friendship  for  many 
a  day,  and  there  will  be  how  many  temptations 
to  hold  it  all  a  delusion  and  scatter  the  few  still 
standing  loyally  to  the  flag.  We  must  under- 
stand, then,  the  bond  that  holds  us  together  on 
the  line  of  march,  and  in  the  teeth  of  every  op- 


44  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

position.  Nothing  but  a  genuine  bond  of  broth- 
erhood can  so  unite  men,  but  we  hardly  seem  to 
realise  its  truth.  When  a  deep  and  ardent 
patriotism  requires  men  of  different  creeds  to 
come  together  frankly  and  in  a  spirit  of  com- 
radeship, and  when  the  most  earnest  of  all  the 
creeds  do  so,  others  who  are  colder  and  less 
earnest  regard  this  union  as  a  somewhat  sus- 
picious alliance;  and  if  they  join  in,  do  so  re- 
luctantly. Others  come  not  at  all;  these  think 
our  friends  labour  in  a  delusion,  that  it  needs 
but  an  occasion  to  start  an  old  fear  and  drive 
them  apart,  to  attack  one  another  with  ancient 
bitterness  fired  with  fresh  venom.  We  must 
combat  that  idea.  Let  us  consider  the  attitude 
to  one  another  of  three  units  of  the  band,  who 
represent  the  best  of  the  company  and  should 
be  typical  of  the  whole;  one  who  is  a  Catholic, 
one  who  is  a  Protestant,  and  one  who  may  hap- 
pen to  be  neither.  The  complete  philosophy  of 
any  one  of  the  three  may  not  be  accepted  by  the 
other  two ;  the  horizon  of  his  hopes  may  be  more 
or  less  distant,  but  that  complete  philosophy 
stretches  beyond  the  limit  of  the  sphere,  within 
which  they  are  drawn  together  to  mutual  under- 
standing and  comradeship,  m^v^d  by  a  common 


BROTHERS  AND  ENEMIES  45 

hope,  a  brave  purpose  and  a  beautiful  dream. 
The  significance  of  their  work  may  be  deeper 
for  one  than  for  another,  the  origin  of  the 
dream  and  its  ultimate  aim  may  be  points  not 
held  in  common ;  but  the  beautiful  tangible  thing 
that  they  all  now  fight  for,  the  purer  public 
and  private  life,  the  more  honourable  dealings 
between  men,  the  higher  ideals  for  the  com- 
munity and  the  nation,  the  grander  forbearance, 
courage,  and  freedom,  in  all  these  they  are  at 
one.  The  instinctive  recognition  of  an  attack 
on  the  ideal  is  alive  and  vigilant  in  all  three. 
The  sympathy  that  binds  them  is  ardent,  deep 
and  enduring.  Observe  them  come  together. 
Note  the  warm  haad  grasp,  the  drawn  face  of 
one,  a  hard-worker ;  of  another,  the  eye  anxious 
for  a  brother  hard  pressed;  of  the  third,  the 
eye  glistening  for  the  ideal  triumphant;  of  all, 
the  intimate  confidence,  the  mutual  encourage- 
ment and  self-sacrifice,  never  a  note  of  despair, 
but  always  the  exultation  of  the  Great  Fight, 
and  the  promise  of  a  great  victory.  This  is  a 
finer  company  than  a  mere  casual  alliance ;  yet 
it  makes  the  uninspired  pause,  wondering  and 
questioning.  These  men  are  earnest  men  of  dif- 
ferent creeds ;  still  they  are  as  intimately  bound 


46  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

to  one  another  as  if  they  knelt  at  the  one  altar. 
In  the  narrow  view  the  creeds  should  be  at  one 
another's  throats;  here  they  are  marching 
shoulder  to  shoulder.  How  is  this?  And  the 
one  whose  creed  is  the  most  exacting  could,  per- 
haps, give  the  best  reply.  He  would  reply  that 
within  the  sphere  in  which  they  work  together 
the  true  thing  that  unites  them  can  be  done  only 
the  one  right  way;  that  instinctively  seizing 
this  right  way  they  come  together;  that  this  is 
the  line  of  advance  to  wider  and  deeper  things 
that  are  his  inspiration  and  his  life;  that  if  a 
comrade  is  roused  to  action  by  the  nearer  task, 
and  labours  bravely  and  rightly  for  it,  he  is  on 
the  road  to  widening  vistas  in  his  dream  that 
now  he  may  not  see.  That  is  what  he  would  say 
whose  vision  of  life  is  the  widest.  All  objectors 
he  may  not  satisfy.  That  what  is  life  to  him 
may  leave  his  comrade  cold  is  a  difficulty;  but 
against  the  difficulty  stand  the  depth  and  reality 
of  their  comradeship,  proven  by  mutual  sacri- 
fice, endurance  and  faith,  and  he  never  doubts 
that  their  bond  union  will  sometime  prove  to 
have  a  wise  and  beautiful  meaning  in  the  An- 
nals of  God. 


BROTHERS  AND  ENEMIES  47 

iii 

But  the  men  of  different  creeds  who  stand 
firmly  and  loyally  together  are  a  minority.  We 
are  faced  with  the  great  difiSculty  of  uniting 
as  a  whole  North  and  South ;  and  we  are  faced 
with  the  grim  fact  that  many  whom  we  desire 
to  unite  are  angrily  repudiating  a  like  desire, 
that  many  are  sarcastically  noting  this,  that 
many  are  coldly  refusing  to  believe;  while 
through  it  all  the  most  bitter  are  emphasising 
enmity  and  glorifying  it.  All  these  unbelievers 
keep  insisting  North  and  South  are  natural  ene- 
mies and  must  so  remain.  The  situation  is  fur- 
ther embittered  by  acts  of  enmity  being  prac- 
tised by  both  sides  to  the  extreme  provocation 
of  the  faithful  few.  Their  forbearance  will  be 
sorely  tried,  and  this  is  the  final  test  of  men. 
By  those  who  cling  to  prejudice  and  abandon 
self-restraint,  extol  enmity,  and  always  proceed 
to  the  further  step — the  plea  to  ^vipe  the  enemy 
out :  the  counter  plea  for  forbearance  is  always 
scorned  as  the  enervating  gospel  of  weakness 
and  despair.  Though  we  like  to  call  ourselves 
Christian,  we  have  no  desire  for — ^nay  even 


48  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

make  a  jest  of — that  outstanding  Cliristian  vir- 
tue ;  yet  men  not  lield  by  Christian  dogma  have 
joyously  surrendered  to  the  sublimity  of  that 
divine  idea.  Hear  Shelley  speak:  *^What  na- 
tion has  the  example  of  the  desolation  of  Attica 
by  Mardonius  and  Xerxes,  or  the  extinction  of 
the  Persian  Empire  by  Alexander  of  Macedon 
restrained  from  outrage!  Was  not  the  pretext 
for  this  latter  system  of  spoliation  derived  im- 
mediately from  the  former?  Had  revenge  in 
this  instance  any  other  eif ect  than  to  increase, 
instead  of  diminishing,  the  mass  of  malice  and 
evil  already  existing  in  the  world!  The  empti- 
ness and  folly  of  retaliation  are  apparent  from 
every  example  which  can  be  brought  forward. ' ' 
Shelley  writes  much  further  on  retaliation, 
which  he  denounces  as  *^ futile  superstition." 
Simple  violence  repels  every  high  and  generous 
thinker.  Hear  one  other,  Mazzini:  **What  we 
have  to  do  is  not  to  establish  a  new  order  of 
things  by  violence.  An  order  of  things  so  estab- 
lished is  always  tyrannical  even  when  it  is  bet- 
ter than  the  old.''  Let  us  bear  this  in  mind 
when  there  is  an  act  of  aggression  on  either  side 
of  the  Boyne.  There  will  not  be  wanting  on  the 
other  side  a  cry  for  retaliation  and  *  *  a  lesson. ' ' 


BROTHERS  AND  ENEMIES  49 

We  shall  receive  every  provocation  to  give  up 
and  acknowledge  ancient  bitterness,  but  then  is 
the  time  to  stand  firm,  then  we  shall  need  to 
practise  the  divine  forbearance  that  is  the  se- 
cret of  strength. 

iv 

But  with  only  a  minority  standing  to  the  flag 
we  cry  out  for  some  hope  of  final  success.  Men 
will  not  fight  without  result  for  ever;  they  ask 
for  some  sign  of  progress,  some  gleam  of  the 
light  of  victory.  Happily,  searching  the  skies, 
our  eyes  can  have  their  reward.  We  shall,  no 
doubt,  see,  outstanding,  dark  evidence  of  old 
animosity;  we  shall  hear  fierce  war-cries  and 
see  raging  crowds,  but  the  crowds  are  less  nu- 
merous, and  the  wrath  has  lost  its  sting.  Men 
who  raged  twenty  years  ago  rage  now,  but  their 
fury  is  less  real;  and  young  men  growing  up 
around  them,  quite  indifferent  to  the  ideal,  are 
also  indifferent  to  the  counter  cries:  they  are 
passive,  unimpressed  by  either  side.  Kightly 
approached,  they  may  understand  and  feel  the 
glow  of  a  fine  enthusiasm ;  they  are  numbed  by 
prejudice,  they  will  become  warm,  active  and 
daring  under  an  inspiring  appeal.    Remember, 


50  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

and  have  done  with  despair.  Think  how  you 
and  I  found  our  path  step  by  step  of  the  way : 
political  life  was  full  of  conventions  that  suited 
our  fathers '  time,  but  have  faded  in  the  light  of 
our  day.  We  found  these  conventions  unreal 
and  put  them  by.  This  was  no  reflection  on  our 
fathers ;  what  they  fought  for  truly  is  our  herit- 
age, and  we  pay  them  a  tribute  in  offering  it 
in  turn  our  loyalty  inspired  by  their  devotion. 
But  their  errors  we  must  rectify;  what  they 
left  undone  we  must  take  up  and  fulfil.  That 
is  the  task  of  every  generation,  to  take  up  the 
uncompleted  work  of  the  former  one,  and  hand 
on  to  their  successors  an  achievement  and  a 
heritage.  Youth  recognises  this  instinctively, 
and  every  generation  mil  take  a  step  in  advance 
of  its  predecessor,  putting  by  its  prejudices  and 
developing  its  truth.  Every  individual  may 
know  this  from  his  own.  experience,  and  from  it 
he  knows  that  those  who  are  now  voicing  old 
bitter  cries  are  aging,  and  will  soon  pass  and 
leave  no  successors.  Not  that  prejudice  will 
die  for  ever.  Each  new  day  will  have  its  own, 
but  that  which  is  now  dividing  and  hampering 
us  will  pass.  Let  the  memory  of  its  bitterness 
be  an  incentive  to  checkinsr  new  animosities  and 


BROTHERS  AND  ENEMIES  61 

keeping  the  future  safe ;  but  in  the  present  let 
us  grasp  and  keep  in  our  mind  that  the  barrier 
that  sundered  our  nation  must  crumble,  if  only 
we  have  faith  and  persist,  undeterred  by  old 
bitter  cries,  for  they  are  dying  cries,  unde- 
pressed by  millions  apathetic,  for  it  is  the  great 
recurring  sign  of  the  ideal,  that  one  hour  its 
light  will  flash  through  quivering  multitudes, 
and  millions  will  have  vision  and  rouse  to  re- 
generate the  land. 


Happily,  it  is  nothing  new  to  plead  for  broth- 
erhood among  Irishmen  now;  unhappily,  it  is 
not  so  generally  admitted,  nor  even  recognised, 
that  the  same  reason  that  exists  for  restoring 
friendly  relations  among  Irishmen,  exists  for 
the  re-establishing  of  friendship  with  any  out- 
sider— England  or  another — ^with  whom  now  or 
in  the  future  we  may  be  at  war.  Friendliness 
between  neighbours  is  one  of  the  natural  things 
of  life.  In  the  case  of  individuals  how  beauti- 
fully it  shows  between  two  dwellers  in  the  same 
street  or  townland.  They  rejoice  together  in 
prosperity ;  give  mutual  aid  in  adversity ;  in  the 
ordinary  daily  round  work  together  in  a  spirit 


52  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

of  comradeship;  at  all  times  they  find  a  bond  of 
unity  in  their  mutual  interests.  Consider,  then, 
the  sundering  of  their  friendship  by  some  act 
of  evil  on  either  side.  The  old  friendship  is 
turned  to  hate.  Now  the  proximity  that  gave 
intimate  pleasure  to  their  comradeship  gives  as 
keen  an  edge  to  their  enmity;  they  meet  one 
another,  cross  one  another,  harass  one  another 
at  every  point.  The  bitterness  that  is  such  a 
poison  to  life  must  be  revolting  to  their  best 
instincts ;  deep  in  their  hearts  must  be  a  yearn- 
ing for  the  casting  out  of  hate  and  the  return 
of  old  comradeship.  Still  the  estranged  broth- 
ers are  at  daggers  dra^vn.  Sometimes  the  evil 
done  is  so  great  and  the  bitterness  so  keen  that 
the  old  spirit  can  apparently  never  be  restored ; 
but  while  there  is  any  hope  whatever  the  true 
heart  will  keep  it  alive  deep  do^vn,  for  it  must 
be  cherished  and  kept  in  mind  if  the  whole 
beauty  of  life  is  to  be  renewed  and  preserv^ed 
for  ever.  It  is  so  with  nations  as  with  individ- 
uals. Once  this  is  recognised  we  must  be  on 
guard  against  a  new  error,  which  is  an  old  error 
in  new  form,  the  taking  of  means  for  end.  The 
end  of  general  peace  is  to  give  all  nations  free- 
dom in  essentials,  to  realise  the  deeper  purpose, 


BROTHERS  AND  ENEMIES  53 

possibilities,  fulness  and  beauty  of  life ;  it  is  not 
to  have  a  peace  at  any  price,  peace  with,  a  cer- 
tain surrender,  the  meaner  peace  that  is  akin 
to  slavery.  No,  its  message  is  to  guard  one 
nation  from  excess  that  has  plunged  another 
into  evil,  to  leave  the  way  open  to  a  final  peace, 
not  base  but  honourable;  it  is  to  preserve  the 
divine  balance  of  the  soul.  It  may  be  further 
urged  that  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  fight; 
that  to  try  to  rouse  in  men  the  more  generous 
instincts  will  but  weaken  their  hands  by  remov- 
ing a  certain  driving  bitterness  that  gives 
strength  to  their  fight.  Whatever  it  removes  it 
will  not  be  their  strength.  In  a  war  admittedly 
between  brothers,  a  civil  war,  where  different 
conceptions  of  duty  force  men  asunder,  father 
is  up  against  son,  and  brother  against  brother; 
yet  they  are  not  weakened  in  their  contest  by 
ties  of  blood  and  the  deeper-lying  harmony  of 
things  that  in  happier  times  prevail  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  bitterness  and  hate.  "When,  there- 
fore, you  teach  a  man  his  enemy  is  in  a  deep 
sense  his  brother,  you  do  not  draw  him  from  the 
fight,  but  you  give  him  a  new  conception  of  the 
goal  to  win  and  with  a  great  dream  inspire  h\m^ 
to  persevere  and  reach  the  goal. 


64  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

Vi 

If,  then,  beyond  individual  and  national  free- 
dom there  is  this  great  dream  still  to  be  striven 
for,  let  us  not  decry  it  as  something  too  sub- 
lime for  earth.  It  must  be  our  gniiding  star 
to  lead  us  rightly  as  far  as  we  may  go.  We 
can  travel  rightly  that  part  of  the  road  we  now 
tread  on  only  by  shaping  it  time  to  the  great 
end  that  ought  to  inspire  us  all.  We  shall  have 
many  temptations  to  swerve  aside,  but  the 
power  of  mind  that  keeps  our  position  clear 
and  firm  will  react  against  every  destroying 
influence.  In  the  first  stage  of  the  fight  for 
internal  unity,  when  blind  bigotry  is  furiously 
insisting  that  we  but  plan  an  insidious  scheme 
for  the  oppression  of  a  minority,  our  firmness 
will  save  us  till  our  conception  of  the  end  grow 
on  that  minority  and  convince  all  of  our  ear- 
nestness. Then  the  dream  will  inspire  them, 
the  flag  will  claim  them,  and  the  first  stage  in 
the  fight  will  be  won.  When  internal  unity  is 
accomplished,  we  are  within  reach  of  freedom. 
Yes,  but  cries  an  objector,  ^^Why  plead  for 
friendship  with  England,  who  will  have  peace 
only  on  condition  of  her  supremacy?'*    And  an 


BROTHERS  AND  ENEMIES  55 

answer  is  needed.  If  it  takes  two  to  make  a 
fight,  it  also  most  certainly  takes  two  to  make  a 
peace,  unless  one  accepts  the  position  of  serf 
and  surrenders.  But  this  we  do  not  fear;  we 
can  compel  our  freedom  and  we  are  confident 
of  victory.  There  is  still  the  step  to  friendship. 
Many  will  be  baffled  by  the  difficulty,  that  while 
we  must  keep  alive  our  generous  instincts,  we 
must  be  stern  and  resolute  in  the  fight;  while 
we  desire  peace  we  must  prosecute  war;  while 
v/e  long  for  comradeship  we  must  be  break- 
ing up  dangerous  alliances:  literary,  political, 
trades  and  social  unions  formed  with  England 
while  she  is  asserting  her  supremacy  must  be 
broken  up  till  thej  can  be  reformed  on  a  basis 
of  independence,  equality  and  universal  free- 
dom. While  we  are  prosecuting  these  vigorous 
measures  it  may  not  seem  the  way  to  final 
friendship;  but  we  must  persist;  independence 
is  first  indispensable.  Here  again,  however, 
while  insisting  among  our  own  ranks  on  our  con- 
ception of  the  end,  it  will  grow  on  the  mind  of 
the  enemy.  They  may  put  it  by  at  first  as  a 
delusion  or  a  snare,  but  one  intimate  moment 
will  come  when  it  will  light  up  for  them,  and  a 
new  era  is  begun.     In  such  a  moment  is  evil 


56  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

abandoned,  hate  buried  and  friendship  rebonL 
There  is  one  honest  fear  that  our  independence 
would  threaten  their  security :  it  will  yet  be  re- 
placed by  the  conviction  that  there  is  a  surer 
safeguard  in  our  freedom  than  in  our  suppres- 
sion ;  the  light  will  break  through  the  clouds  of 
suspicion  and  a  star  of  stars  will  glorify  the 
earth.  For  this  end  our  enemy  must  have 
an  ideal  as  high  as  our  own ;  if  thus  an  objector, 
he  is  right.  But  if  in  the  gross  materialism  and 
greed  of  empire  that  is  now  the  ruling  passion 
with  the  enemy  there  is  apparently  little  hope 
of  a  transformation  that  will  make  them  spirit- 
ual, high-minded  and  generous,  we  must  not 
abandon  our  ideal:  while  the  meanness  and 
tyranny  of  contemporary  England  stand  for- 
ward against  our  argxmient  and  leave  our  rea- 
soning cold,  we  can  find  a  more  subtle  appeal  in 
spirit,  such  an  appeal  as  comes  to  us  in  a  play 
of  Shakespeare's,  a  song  of  Shelley's,  or  a  pic- 
ture of  Turner's.  From  the  heart  of  the  enemy 
Genius  cries,  bearing  witness  to  our  common 
humanity,  and  the  yearning  for  such  high  com- 
radeship is  alive,  and  the  dream  survives  to 
light  us  on  the  forward  path.  We  must  travel 
that  path  rightly.    We  can  so  travel  whatever 


BROTHERS  AND  ENEMIES  57 

the  enemy's  mind.  More  difficult  it  will  be,  but 
it  can  be  done.  That  is  the  great  significance 
and  justification  of  Nationalism:  it  is  the  un- 
answerable argument  to  cosmopolitanism.  If 
the  greatness  and  beauty  of  life  that  ought  to 
be  the  dream  of  all  nations  is  denied  by  all  but 
one,  that  one  may  keep  alive  the  dream  within 
her  own  frontier  till  its  fascination  will  arrest 
and  inspire  the  world.  If  this  ultimate  dream 
is  still  floating  far  off,  in  its  pursuit  there  is  for 
us  achievement  on  achievement,  and  each  brave 
thing  done  is  in  itself  a  beauty  and  a  joy  for 
ever.  For  the  good  fighter  there  is  always  fine 
recompense;  a  clear  mind,  warm  blood,  quick 
imagination,  grasp  of  life  and  joy  in  action,  and 
at  the  end  of  day  always  an  eminence  won.  Yes, 
and  from  the  height  of  that  eminence  will  come 
ringing  down  to  the  last  doubter  a  last  word :  we 
may  reach  the  mountain-tops  in  aspiring  to  the 
stars. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   SECEET   OF    STRENGTH 


TO  win  our  freedom  we  must  be  strong.  But 
what  is  the  secret  of  strength?  It  is  fun- 
damental to  the  whole  question  to  understand 
this  rightly  and,  once  grasped,  make  it  the  main- 
stay of  individual  existence,  which  is  the 
foundation  of  national  life.  So  much  has  the 
bodily  power  of  over-riding  minorities  been 
made  the  criterion  of  absolute  power,  that  to 
make  clear  the  truth  requires  patience,  insight, 
and  a  little  mental  study.  But  the  end  is  a  great 
end.  It  is  to  reconnoitre  the  most  important 
battlefield,  to  discover  the  dispositions  of  the 
enemy,  to  measure  our  own  resources  and  forge 
our  strength  link  by  link  till  we  put  on  the  ar- 
mour of  invincibility. 

58 


THE  SECRET  OF  STRENGTH  59 

ii 

We  have  to  grasp  a  distinction,  knowledge  of 
which  is  essential  to  discerning  true  strength. 
It  can  be  clearly  seen  in  the  contrast  between 
two  certain  fighting  forces;  first  a  well-organ- 
ised army,  capably  led,  marching  forward  full 
of  hope  and  buoyancy;  second,  a  remnant  of 
that  army  after  disaster,  a  mere  handful,  not 
swept  like  their  comrades  in  panic,  but  with 
souls  set  to  fight  a  forlorn  hope.  Let  us  study 
the  two :  in  the  contrast  we  shall  learn  the  se- 
cret. The  courage  of  the  well  organised  army  is 
not  of  so  fine  a  quality  as  that  nerving  the  few 
to  fight  to  the  last  gasp.  Consider  first  the 
army.  What  is  its  value  as  a  force?  Its  disci- 
pline, its  consolidation,  the  absolute  obedience 
of  its  units  to  its  officers,  with  the  resulting 
unity  of  the  whole;  added  to  this  is  the  sense 
of  security  in  numbers,  buoyancy  of  marching 
in  a  compact  body,  confidence  in  capable  chiefs 
— all  these  factors  go  to  the  making  of  the  cour- 
age and  strength  of  the  army.  It  is  because 
their  combination  makes  for  the  reliability  of 
the  force  that  discipline  is  so  much  valued  and 


60  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

enforced,  even  to  the  point  of  death.  Let  us 
keep  this  in  our  mind,  that  their  strength  lies 
in  their  numbers,  concentration,  unity,  reliance 
on  one  another  and  on  their  chiefs.  A  sudden 
disaster  overtakes  that  army — the  death  of  a 
great  general,  the  miscarriage  of  some  plan,  a 
surprise  attack,  any  of  the  chances  of  war,  and 
the  strength  of  the  army  is  pierced,  the  disci- 
pline shaken,  the  sense  of  security  gone.  There 
is  an  instinctive  movement  to  retreat ;  the  habit 
of  discipline  keeps  it  orderly  at  first;  the  fear 
grows ;  all  precaution  and  restraint  are  thrown 
aside — the  retreat  is  a  rout,  the  army  a  rabble, 
the  end  debacle.  External  discipline  in  giving 
them  its  strength  left  them  without  individ- 
ual resource;  internal  discipline  was  ignored. 
When  their  combined  strength  was  gone  there 
was  individual  helplessness  and  panic.  Con- 
sider, now,  a  remnant  of  that  army,  the  members 
of  which  have  the  courage  of  the  finer  quality, 
individually  resolute  and  set  on  resistance, 
clearly  seeing  at  once  all  the  possible  conse- 
quences of  their  action,  yet  with  that  higher 
quality  of  soul  accepting  them  mthout  hesita- 
tion, pledging  all  human  hopes  for  one  last  great 
hope  of  snatching  victory  from  defeat,  or,  if 


THE  SECRET  OF  STRENGTH  61 

not  to  save  a  lost  battle,  to  check  an  advancing 
host,  rally  flying  forces,  and  redeem  a  cam- 
paign. This  is  the  heroic  quality.  In  a  crisis, 
the  mind  possessed  of  it  does  not  wait  for  in- 
structions or  to  reason  a  conclusion.  It  sees 
definite  things,  and  swift  as  thought  decides. 
There  are  flying  legions,  a  flag  down,  a  con- 
quering army,  and  flight  or  death — to  all  eyes 
these  are  apparent;  but  to  a  brave  company  be- 
tween that  flight  and  death  there  is  a  gleam  of 
hope,  of  victory,  and  for  that  forlorn  hope  flight 
is  put  by  with  the  acceptance  of  death  in  the 
alternative  if  they  fail.  That  is  the  quality  to 
redeem  us.  Because  it  is  witnessed  so  often  in 
our  history  we  are  going  to  win;  not  for  our 
prowess  in  more  fortunate  war  on  an  even  field 
or  with  the  flowing  tide,  not  for  many  victories 
in  many  lands,  but  for  the  sacred  places  in  this 
our  brave  land  that  are  memorable  for  fights 
that  registered  the  land  unconquerable.  Why  a. 
last  stand  and  a  sacrifice  are  more  inspiring 
than  a  great  victory  is  one  of  the  hidden  things ; 
but  the  truth  stands :  for  thinking  of  them  our 
spirits  re-kindle,  our  courage  re-awakens,  and 
we  stiffen  our  backs  for  another  battle. 


e2  PRINCIPLES  OF  FEEEDOM 

ill 

We  have,  then,  to  develop  individual  patience, 
courage  and  resolution.  Once  this  is  borne  in 
mind  our  work  begins.  In  places  there  is  a  dan- 
gerous idea  that  sometime  in  the  future  we  may- 
be called  on  to  strike  a  blow  for  freedom,  but 
in  the  meantime  there  is  little  to  do  but  watch 
and  wait.  This  is  a  fatal  error;  we  have  to 
forge  our  strength  in  the  interi^al.  There  is  a 
further  mistake  that  our  national  work  is  some- 
thing apart,  that  social,  business,  religious  and 
other  concerns  have  no  relation  to  it,  and  con- 
sequently we  set  apart  a  few  hours  of  our  leis- 
ure for  national  work,  and  go  about  our  day  as 
if  no  nation  existed.  But  the  middle  of  the  day 
has  a  natural  connection  with  the  beginning  of 
the  day  and  the  end  of  the  day,  and  in  whatever 
sphere  a  man  finds  himself,  his  acts  must  be  in 
relation  to  and  consistent  with  every  other 
sphere.  He  will  be  the  best  patriot  and  the  best 
soldier  who  is  the  best  friend  and  the  best  citi- 
zen. One  cannot  be  an  honest  man  in  one  sphere 
and  a  rascal  in  another;  and  since  a  citizen  to 
fulfil  his  duty  to  his  country  must  be  honourable 
and  zealous,  he  must  develop  the  underlying  vir- 


THE  SECRET  OP  STRENGTH  63 

tues  in  private  life.  He  must  strengthen  the 
individual  character,  and  to  do  this  he  must  deal 
with  many  things  seemingly  remote  and  incon- 
sequential from  a  national  point  of  view. 
Everything  that  crosses  a  man's  path  in  his 
day's  round  of  little  or  great  moment  requires 
of  him  an  attitude  towards  it,  and  the  conscious 
or  unconscious  shaping  of  his  attitude  is  deter- 
mining how  he  will  proceed  in  other  spheres  not 
now  in  view.  Suppose  the  case  of  a  man  in 
business  or  social  life.  He  has  to  work  with 
others  in  a  day's  routine  or  fill  up  with  them 
hours  of  leisure  they  enjoy  together.  Consider 
to  what  accompaniment  the  work  is  often  done 
and  with  what  manner  of  conversation  the  leis- 
ure is  often  filled.  In  a  day's  routine,  where 
men  work  together,  harmonious  relations  are 
necessary ;  yet  what  bickerings,  contentions,  ani- 
mosities fill  many  a  day  over  points  never  worth 
a  thought.  You  will  see  two  men  squabble  like 
cats  for  the  veriest  trifle,  and  then  go  through 
days  like  children,  without  a  word.  You  will 
see  something  similar  in  social  life  among  men 
and  women  equally — petty  jealousies,  personali- 
ties, slanderings,  mean  little  stories  of  no  great 
consequence  in  themselves,  except  in  the  con- 


64  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

verse  sense  of  showing  how  small  and  contempt- 
ible everything  and  everyone  concerned  is.  A 
keen  eye  notes  mth  some  depression  the  absence 
from  both  spheres  of  a  fine  manliness,  a  gener- 
ous conception  of  things,  a  large  outlook,  that 
prevents  a  squabble  with  a  smile,  and  because  of 
a  consciousness  of  the  need  for  determination 
in  a  great  fight  for  a  principle,  holds  in  true 
contempt  the  trivialities  of  an  hour.  For  in  all 
the  mean  little  bickerings  of  life  there  is  in- 
volved not  a  principle,  but  a  petty  pride.  One 
has  to  note  these  things  and  decide  a  line  of 
action.  In  the  abstract  the  right  course  seems 
quite  natural  and  easy,  but  in  fact  it  is  not  so. 
A  man  finds  another  act  towards  him  with  un- 
conscious impudence  or  arrogance,  and  at  once 
flies  into  a  rage ;  there  is  a  fierce  wrangle,  and 
at  the  end  he  finds  no  purpose  served,  for  noth- 
ing was  at  stake.  He  has  lost  his  temper  for 
nothing.  In  his  heat  he  may  tell  you  **he 
wouldn't  let  so-and-so  do  so-and-so, '^  but  on 
the  same  principle  he  should  hold  a  street-argu- 
ment with  every  fish-wife  who  might  call  him  a 
name.  He  may  tell  you  *  ^he  will  make  so-and-so 
respect  him,"  but  he  offends  his  own  self-re- 
spect if  he  cannot  consider  some  things  beneath 


THE  SECRET  OF  STRENGTH  65 

him.  One  must  have  a  sense  of  proportion  and 
not  elevate  every  little  act  of  impudence  into  a 
challenge  of  life  to  be  fought  over  as  for  life 
and  death.  It  may  be  corrected  with  a  little  hu- 
mour or  a  little  disdain,  but  always  with  sympa- 
thy for  the  narrow  mind  whose  view  of  life  can- 
not reach  beyond  these  petty  things.  Yet,  to  re- 
peat, it  is  not  easy.  An  irritable  temper  will  be 
on  fire  before  reason  can  check  it ;  the  process  of 
correction  will  prove  uncomfortable — the  rear 
sons  will  be  there,  but  the  feelings  in  revolt. 
Still,  little  by  little,  it  is  brought  under,  and  in 
the  end  the  nasty  little  irritability  is  killed  just 
like  a  troublesome  nerve;  and,  by  and  by, 
what  once  provoked  a  fierce  rage  becomes  a  sub- 
ject for  humorous  reflection.  Let  no  one  fear 
we  kill  the  nerve  for  the  great  Battle  of  Life; 
this  we  but  strengthen  and  make  constant. 
Every  act  af  personal  discipline  is  contributing 
to  a  subconscious  reservoir  whence  our  nobler 
energies  are  supplied  for  ever.  And  so,  little 
things  lead  to  great ;  and  in  an  office  wrangle  or 
a  social  squabble  there  is  need  for  developing 
those  very  qualities  of  judgment,  courage,  and 
patience  which  equip  a  man  for  the  trials  of 
the  battlefield  or  the  ruling  of  the  state. 


ee  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

iv 

We  have  considered  the  indmdual  in  business 
and  social  life.  Let  us  now  follow  him  into  a 
political  assembly.  We  find  the  same  conditions 
prevail.  Again,  men  fight  bitterly  but  most  fre- 
quently for  nothing  worth  a  fight;  and  again 
those  rightly  judging  the  situation  must  resolve 
not  to  be  tempted  into  a  wrangle  even  if  their 
restraint  be  called  by  another  name.  What  in 
a  political  assembly  is  often  the  first  thing  to 
note?  We  begin  by  the  assumption,  ^*this  is  a 
practical  body  of  men,''  the  words  invariably 
used  to  cover  the  putting  by  of  some  great  prin- 
ciple that  we  ought  all  endorse  and  uphold. 
But,  first,  by  one  of  the  many  specious  reasons 
now  approved,  we  put  the  principle  by,  and  be- 
fore long  we  are  at  one  another's  throats  about 
things  involving  no  principle.  It  is  not  neces- 
sary to  particularise.  Note  any  meeting  for  the 
same  general  conditions:  a  chairman,  indeci- 
sive, explaining  rules  of  order  which  he  lacks 
the  grit  to  apply;  members  ignoring  the  chair 
and  talking  at  one  another;  others  calling  to 
order  or  talking  out  of  time  or  away  from  the 


THE  SECRET  OF  STRENGTH  67 

point;  one  unconsciously  shomng  the  futility 
of  the  whole  business  by  asking  occasionally 
what  is  before  the  chair,  or  what  the  purpose 
of  the  meeting.  This  picture  is  familiar  to  us 
all,  and  curiously  we  seem  to  take  it  always  as 
the  particular  freak  of  a  particular  time  or 
locality ;  but  it  is  nothing  of  the  kind.  It  is  the 
natural  and  logical  result  of  putting  by  prin- 
ciple and  trying  to  live  away  from  it.  Yet,  that 
is  what  we  are  doing  every  day.  It  means  we 
lack  collectively  the  courage  to  pursue  a  thing 
to  its  logical  conclusion  and  fight  for  the  truth 
realised.  If  we  are  to  be  otherwise  as  a  body, 
it  will  only  be  by  personal  discipline  training 
for  the  wider  and  greater  field.  We  must  get 
a  proper  conception  of  the  great  cause  we  stand 
for,  its  magnitude  and  majesty,  and  that  to  be 
worthy  of  its  service  we  must  have  a  standard 
above  reproach,  have  an  end  of  petty  pro- 
posals and  underhand  doings,  be  of  brave  front, 
resolute  heart,  and  honourable  intent.  We  must 
all  understand  this  each  in  his  own  mind  and 
shape  his  actions,  each  to  be  found  faithful  in 
the  test.  In  fine,  if  in  private  life  there  is  need 
for  developing  the  great  virtues  requisite  for 


68  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

public  service,  even  more  is  it  necessary  in  pub- 
lic life  to  develop  tbe  courage,  patience  and 
wisdom  of  the  soldier  and  the  statesman. 

V 

A  concrete  case  will  give  a  clearer  grasp  of 
the  issue  than  any  abstract  reasoning.  Our 
history,  recent  and  remote,  affords  many  ex- 
amples of  the  abandoning  by  our  public  men  of 
a  principle,  to  defend  which  they  entered  pub- 
lic life;  and  our  action  on  such  an  occasion  is 
invariably  the  same — to  regard  the  delinquent 
as  simply  a  traitor,  to  load  him  with  invective 
and  scorn  and  brand  him  for  ever.  We  never 
see  it  is  not  innate  wickednecjs  in  the  man,  but 
a  weakness  against  which  he  has  been  un- 
trained and  undisciplined,  and  which  leaves 
him  helpless  in  the  first  crisis.  Ireland  has  re- 
cently been  incensed  by  the  action  of  some  of 
her  mayors  and  lord  mayors  in  connection  with 
the  English  Coronation  festival ;  the  feeling  has 
been  acute  in  the  metropolis.  Certain  things 
are  obvious,  but  how  many  see  what  is  below 
the  surface?  Let  me  suggest  a  case  and  a  series 
of  circumstances;  the  more  pointed  the  case, 
the  more  interestiug.    I  will  suppose  a  particn- 


THE  SECRET  OF  STRENGTH  69 

lar  mayor  is  an  old  Fenian :  let  ns  see  how  for 
Mm  a  web  is  finely  woven,  and  in  the  end  how 
secnrely  he  is  netted.  First  a  mayor  is  a  mag- 
istrate, and  must  take  the  judicial  oath,  but  the 
old  fenian  has  taken  an  oath  of  allegiance  to 
Ireland — clash  number  one.  It  is  not  simply  a 
question  of  yes  or  no ;  there  are  attendant  cir- 
cumstances. Around  a  public  man  in  place 
circulates  a  swarm  of  interested  people,  needy 
friends,  meddling  politicians,  *^ supporters'' 
generally.  The  chief  magistrate  will  have  in- 
fluence on  the  bench  which  they  all  wish  to  in- 
voke now  and  then,  and  they  all  wish  to  see  him 
there.  They  don't  approve  of  any  principle 
that  stands  in  the  way.  They  group  themselves 
together  as  his  ^^ supporters,"  and  claiming  to 
have  put  him  into  public  life,  they  act  as  if  they 
had  acquired  a  lease  of  his  soul.  Not  what  he 
knows  to  be  right,  but  what  they  believe  to  be 
useful,  must  be  done ;  and  before  the  first  day 
is  done  the  first  fight  must  be  made.  However, 
the  old  Fenian  has  enough  of  the  spirit  of  old 
times  to  come  safe  through  the  first  round. 
But  the  second  is  close  on  his  heels:  Dublin 
Casfle  has  been  attentive.  The  mayor,  as  chief 
magistrate,  has  privileges  on  which  the  Castle 


70  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

now  silently  closes.  There  are  private  and 
veiled  remonstrances  by  secret  officials:  **The 
mayor  is  acting  illegally;  lie  mnst  not  do  so- 
and-so;  such  is  the  function  of  a  magistrate; 
he  has  not  taken  the  oath,"  etc.  All  this  re- 
newing the  fight  of  the  first  day,  for  the  Castle, 
too,  wants  the  mayor  on  the  bench  to  brand 
him  as  its  own  and  alienate  him  from  the  old 
flag.  It  puts  on  the  pressure  by  suppressing  his 
privileges,  weakening  his  influence,  and  disap- 
pointing his  '*  supporters. '^  All  this  is  silently 
done.  Still,  the  mayor  holds  fast,  but  he  has 
not  counted  on  this,  and  is  beginning  to  be  baf- 
fled and  worried.  Meanwhile  a  sort  of  guerrilla 
attack  is  being  maintained:  invitations  arrive 
to  garden  parties  at  Windsor,  lesser  functions 
nearer  home,  free  passages  to  all  the  gay  fes- 
tivals, free  admission  everywhere,  the  route  in- 
dicated, and  a  gracious  request  for  the  presence 
of  the  mayor  and  mayoress.  Genuine  business 
engagements  now  save  the  situation,  and  the 
invitations  are  put  by,  but  our  chief  citizen  is 
now  bewildered.  These  social  missiles  are  fly- 
ing in  all  directions,  always  gracious  and  flat- 
tering, never  challenging  and  rude — who  can 
withstand  them!    Still  he  is  bewildered,  but  noj: 


THE  SECRET  OP  STRENGTH  71 

yet  caught.  A  new  assault  is  made :  the  great 
Health  Crusade  Battery  is  called  up.  Here  we 
must  all  unite,  God's  English  and  the  wild 
Irish,  the  Fenian  and  the  Castleman,  the  la- 
bourer and  the  lord.  Surely,  we  are  all  against 
the  microbes.  There  is  a  great  demonstration, 
their  Excellencies  attend — and  the  mayor  pre- 
sides. Under  the  banner  of  the  microbe  he  is 
caught.  It  is  a  great  occasion,  which  their 
Excellencies  grace  and  improve.  His  Excel- 
lency is  affable  with  the  mayor;  her  Excellency 
is  confidential  and  gracious  with  the  mayoress 
— ^we  might  have  been  school-children  in  the 
same  townland  we  are  so  cordial.  Everything 
proceeds  amid  plaudits,  and  winds  up  in  accla- 
mation. Their  Excellencies  depart.  Great  is 
the  no-politics  era — ^you  can  so  quietly  spike 
the  guns  of  many  an  old  politician — and  keep 
him  safe.  The  social  amenities  do  this.  Their 
Excellencies  have  gone,  but  they  do  not  forget. 
There  is  a  warm  word  of  thanks  for  recent  hos- 
pitality. Perhaps  the  mayor  has  a  daughter 
about  to  be  married,  or  a  son  has  died;  it  is 
remembered,  and  the  cordial  congratulation  or 
gracious  sympathy  comes  duly  under  the  great 
seal.      What    sudy    man    would    resent    sym- 


72  PRINCIPLES  OP  FREEDOM 

pathy?  And  so,  the  strength  of  the  old  warrior 
is  sapped;  the  web  is  woven  finely;  in  its  secret 
net  the  Castle  has  its  man.  You  who  have  ex- 
ercised yourselves  in  Dublin  recently  over 
mayoral  doings,  note  all  this — ^not  to  the  mak- 
ing light  of  any  man^s  surrender,  but  to  the 
true  judging  of  the  event,  its  deeper  signifi- 
cance and  danger.  Whoever  fails  must  be 
called  to  account.  When  a  man  takes  a  position 
of  trust,  influence,  and  honour,  and,  whatever 
the  difficulty,  abandons  a  principle  he  should 
hold  sacred,  he  must  be  held  responsible.  A 
battle  is  an  ordeal,  and  we  must  be  stern  with 
friend  and  foe.  But  there  is  something  more 
sinister  than  the  weakness  of  the  man :  remem- 
ber the  net. 

vi 

The  concrete  case  makes  clear  the  principle 
in  question.  The  man  whom  we  have  seen  go 
down  would  have  been  safe  if  he  had  to  fight 
no  battle  but  one  he  could  face  with  all  his  true 
friends,  and  in  the  open  light  of  day.  Having 
to  fight  a  secret  battle  was  never  even  consid- 
ered ;  threats  direct  or  vague  or  subtle,  bland- 
ishments,   cajolery,    graciousness,    patronage^ 


THE  SECRET  OF  STRENGTH  73 

flattery,  plausible  generalities,  attacks  indirect 
and  insidious — all  coming  without  pause,  se- 
cret, silent,  tireless.  He  who  is  to  be  proof 
against  this,  and  above  threat  or  flatterj^,  must 
have  been  disciplined  with  the  discipline  of  a 
life  that  trains  him  for  every  emergency.  You 
cannot  take  up  such  a  character  like  a  garment 
to  suit  the  occasion:  it  must  be  developed  in 
private  and  public  by  all  those  daily  acts  that 
declare  a  man^s  attitude,  register  his  convic- 
tions, and  form  his  mind.  It  gives  its  own  re- 
ward at  once,  even  in  the  day  where  nothing 
is  apparently  at  stake;  where  men  scramble 
furiously  over  the  petty  things  of  life;  for  he 
who  sees  these  things  at  their  proper  value  is 
unruffled.  His  composure  in  all  the  fury  has 
its  own  value.  But  the  mind  that  held  him  so, 
by  the  very  act  of  dismissing  something  petty, 
gets  a  clearer  conception  of  the  great  things 
of  life;  by  intuition  is  at  once  awake  to  a  hover- 
ing and  fatal  menace  to  individual  or  national 
existence,  unseen  of  the  common  eye;  and  in 
that  hour  proves,  to  the  confusion  of  the  en- 
emy, clear,  vigorous  and  swift.  Let  us,  then, 
for  this  great  end  note  what  is  the  secret  of 
strength.     Not  alone  to  be  ready  to  stand  in 


74  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

with  a  host  and  march  bravely  to  battle — the 
discipline  that  provides  for  this  is  great  and 
valuable  and  must  be  always  observed  and  prac- 
tised. This  gives,  however,  only  the  common 
courage  of  the  crowd,  and  can  only  be  trusted 
on  an  even  field  where  the  chances  of  war  are 
equal.  But  when  there  is  a  struggle  to  re- 
store freedom,  where  from  the  nature  of 
the  case  the  chances  are  uneven  and  the  sol- 
diers of  liberty  are  at  every  disadvantage, 
then  must  we  seek  to  adjust  the  balance 
by  a  finer  courage  and  a  more  enduring 
strength.  The  mustering  of  legions  will  not 
suffice.  The  general  reviewing  this  fine  array 
who  would  rightly  estimate  the  power  he  may 
command,  must  silently  examine  the  units,  to 
judge  of  this  brave  host  how  large  a  company 
can  be  formed  to  fight  a  forlorn  hope.  If  this 
spirit  is  in  reserve,  he  is  armed  against  every 
emergency.  If  the  chances  are  equal,  he  will 
have  a  splendid  victory ;  if  by  any  of  the  turns 
of  war  his  legions  are  shaken  and  disaster 
threatened,  there  is  always  a  certain  rallying- 
ground  where  the  host  can  reform  and  the  field 
be  re-won,  and  the  flag  that  has  seen  so  many 
vicissitudes  be  set  at  last  high  and  proudly  in 
the  light  of  Freedom. 


CHAPTER  VI 

PBINCIPLE   IN   ACTION 


OUR  pMlosophy  is  valueless  unless  we 
bring  it  into  life.  With  sufficient  in- 
genuity we  might  frame  theory  after  theory, 
and  if  they  could  not  be  put  to  the  test  of  a 
work-a-day  existence  we  but  add  another  to  the 
many  dead  theories  that  litter  the  History  of 
Philosophy.  Our  principles  are  not  to  argue 
about,  or  write  about,  or  hold  meetings  about, 
but  primarily  to  give  us  a  rule  of  life.  To 
ignore  this  is  to  waste  time  and  energy.  To 
observe  and  follow  it  is  to  take  from  the  clouds 
something  that  appeals  to  us,  work  it  into  life, 
by  it  interpret  the  problems  to  hand,  make  our 
choice  between  opposing  standards,  and  main- 
tain our  fidelity  to  the  true  one  against  every 
opposition  and  through  every  fitful  though  ter- 
rible  depression;   so   shall  we   startle  people 

75 


76  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

with  its  reality,  and  make  for  it  a  disciple  or 
an  opponent,  but  always  at  once  convince  the 
generation  that  there  is  a  serious  work  in 
hand. 


u 

If  our  philosophy  is  to  be  worked  into  life 
the  first  thing  naturally  is  to  review  the  situa- 
tion. If  we  are  to  judge  rightly,  we  must  under- 
stand the  present,  draw  from  the  past  its  les- 
son, and  shape  our  plans  for  the  future  true  to 
the  principles  that  govern  and  inform  every 
generation.  Let  us  sur\^ey  the  past,  taking  a 
sufficiently  wide  view  between  two  points — say 
'98  and  our  own  time — and  we  see  certain 
definite  conditions.  Great  luminous  years — 
'98,  '03,  '48,  '67,  rise  up,  witness  to  a  great 
principle,  readiness  for  sacrifice,  unshaken  be- 
lief in  truth,  valour  and  freedom,  and  a  flag 
that  will  ultimately  prevail.  In  these  years  the 
people  had  vision,  the  blood  quickened,  a  living 
flame  swept  the  land,  scorching  up  hypocrisy, 
deceit,  meanness,  and  lighting  all  brave  hearts 
to  high  hope  and  achievement — for,  the  whim- 
perers notwithstanding,  it  was  always  achieve- 
ment to  challenge  the  enemy  and  stagger  his 


PRINCIPLE  IN  ACTION  77 

power,  though  yet  his  expulsion  is  delayed.  Be- 
tween the  glorious  years  of  the  living  flame 
there  intervened  pallid  times  of  depression, 
where  every  disease  of  soul  and  body  crept 
into  the  open.  True  hearts  lived,  scattered 
here  and  there,  believing  still  but  disorganised 
and  bewildered — the  leaders  were  stricken 
doAvn,  and  in  their  place,  obscuring  the  beauty 
of  life,  the  grandeur  of  the  past,  and  our  future 
destiny,  came  tune-servers,  flatterers,  hypo- 
crites, open  traffickers  in  honour  and  public 
decency,  fastening  their  mean  authority  on  the 
land.  These  are  the  two  great  resting-places 
in  our  historic  survey:  the  generation  of  the 
living  flame  and  the  generation  of  despair ;  and 
it  is  for  us  to  decide — for  the  decision  rests 
with  us — ^whether  we  shall  in  our  time  merely 
mark  time  or  write  another  luminous  chapter 
in  the  splendid  history  of  our  race. 

iii 

Let  us  consider  these  two  generations  apart, 
to  understand  their  distinctive  features  more 
clearly  for  our  own  guidance.  Take  first  the 
years  of  vision  and  the  general  effort  to  replant 
the  old  flag  on  our  walls.    With  the  first  enthu- 


78  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

siasts  breathing  the  living  flame  abroad,  the 
kindling  hope,  the  widening  fires,  the  deepening 
dream,  there  grows  a  consciousness  of  the 
greatness  of  the  goal,  of  the  general  duty,  of 
the  individual  responsibility  for  higher  char^ 
acter,  steadier  work,  and  purer  motive;  and 
gradually  meanness,  trickeries,  and  treacher- 
ies are  weeded  out  of  the  individual  and  na- 
tional consciousness :  there  is  a  realisation  of 
a  time  come  to  restore  the  nation's  independ- 
ence, and  \Yith  passion  and  enthusiasm  are 
fused  a  fine  resolve  and  nerve.  All  the  excited 
doings  of  the  feverish  or  pallid  years  are  put 
by  as  unworthy  or  futile.  The  great  idea  in- 
spires a  great  fight;  and  that  fight  is  made, 
and,  notwithstanding  any  reverse,  must  be  re- 
corded great.  Whatever  concourse  of  circum- 
stances mar  the  dream  and  delay  the  victory, 
those  brave  years  are  as  a  torch  in  witness  to 
the  ideal,  in  justification  of  its  soldiers  and  in 
promise  of  final  success. 

iv 

Let  us  examine  now  the  deadening  years  that 
intervene  between  the  great  fights  for  freedom. 
We  have  known  something  of  these  times  our- 


PRINCIPLE  IN  ACTION  79 

selves,  have  touched  on  them  already,  and  need 
not  further  draw  out  the  demoralising  things 
that  corrupt  and  dishearten  us.  But  what  we 
urgently  require  to  study  is  the  kind  of  effort — 
more  often  the  absence  of  effort — ^made  in  such 
years  by  those  who  keep  their  belief  in  freedom 
and  feel  at  times  impelled  in  some  way  or  other 
to  action.  They  have  followed  a  lost  battle, 
and  in  the  aftermath  of  defeat  they  are  num- 
bered into  despair.  They  refuse  to  surrender 
to  the  forces  of  the  hour,  but  they  lack  the  fine 
faith  and  enthusiasm  of  the  braver  years  that 
challenged  these  forces  at  every  point  and 
stood  or  fell  by  the  issue.  They  lie  apathetic 
till,  moved  by  some  particular  meanness  or 
treachery,  they  are  roused  to  spasmodic  anger, 
rush  to  act  in  some  spasmodic  way — generally 
futile,  and  then  relapse  into  helplessness  again. 
They  lack  the  vision  that  inspires  every  mo- 
ment, discerns  a  sure  way,  and  heightens  the 
spirit  to  battle  without  ceasing,  which  is  char- 
acteristic of  the  great  years.  They  tacitly  ac- 
cept that  theirs  is  a  useless  generation,  that  the 
enemy  is  in  the  ascendant,  that  they  cannot  un- 
seat him,  and  their  action,  where  any  is  made, 
is  but  to  show  their  attitude,  never  to  convince 


80  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

opponents  that  the  battle  is  again  beginning, 
that  this  is  a  bid  for  freedom,  that  history  will 
be  called  on  to  record  their  fight  and  pay 
tribute  to  their  times.  Their  action  has  never 
this  great  significance.  When  stung  to  fitful 
madness  by  the  boastful  votaries  of  power, 
their  occasional  frantic  efforts  are  more  as  re- 
lief to  their  feelings  than  destructive  to  the 
tyranny  in  being.  Let  us  realise  this  to  the 
full;  and  seeing  the  futility  in  other  years  of 
every  pathetic  makeshift  to  annoy  or  circum- 
vent the  enemy,  put  by  futilities  and  do  a  great 
work  to  justify  our  time. 

V 

We  have,  then,  to  consider  and  decide  our 
immediate  attitude  to  life,  where  we  stand. 
There  are  errors  to  remove.  The  first  is  the 
assumption  that  we  are  only  required  to  ac- 
knowledge the  flag  in  places,  offer  it  allegiance 
at  certain  meetings  at  certain  times  that  form 
but  a  small  part  of  our  existence ;  while  we  al- 
low ourselves  to  be  dispensed  from  fidelity  to 
our  principles  when  in  other  places,  where 
other  standards  are  either  explicitly  or  tacitly 
recognised.    That  we  must  carry  our  flag  every- 


PRINCIPLE  IN  ACTION  81 

where;  that  there  must  be  no  dispensation: 
these  are  the  cardinal  points  of  our  philosophy. 
Life  is  a  great  battlefield,  and  any  hour  in  the 
day  a  man  ^s  flag  may  be  challenged  and  he  must 
stand  and  justify  it.  An  idea  you  hold  as  true 
is  not  to  be  professed  only  where  it  is  pro- 
claimed; it  will  whisper  and  you  must  be  its 
prophet  in  strange  places ;  it  is  insistent  of  all 
things — ^you  must  glory  in  it  or  deny  it;  there 
is  no  escaping  it,  and  there  is  no  middle  way; 
wherever  your  path  lies  it  will  cross  you  and 
you  must  choose. 

Beware  lest  on  any  plea  you  put  it  by.  You 
cannot  elect  to  do  nothing;  the  concourse  of 
circumstances  would  take  you  to  some  side ;  to 
do  nothing  is  still  to  take  a  side.  Priest,  poet, 
professor,  public  man,  professional  man,  busi- 
ness man,  tradesman, — everyone  will  be  called 
to  answer;  in  every  walk  of  life  the  true  idea 
will  find  the  false  in  conflict  and  the  battle  must 
be  fought  out  there — the  battle  is  lost  when  we 
satisfy  ourselves  with  an  academic  debate  in 
our  spare  moments.  This  is  a  debating  club 
age,  and  a  plea  for  an  ideal  is  often  wasted, 
taken  as  a  mere  point  in  an  argument;  but  to 
walk  among  men  fighting  passionately  for  it 


82  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

as  a  thing  believed  in,  is  to  make  it  real,  to 
influence  men  never  reached  in  other  ways;  it 
is  to  arrest  attention,  arouse  interest  and 
quicken  the  masses  to  advance.  And  wherever 
the  appeal  for  the  flag  is  calling  us  the  snare 
of  the  enemy  is  in  wait.  Our  history  so  bristles 
with  instances  that  a  particular  concrete  case 
need  not  be  cited.  We  know  that  priests  will 
get  more  patronage  if  they  discourage  the  na- 
tional idea;  that  professors  will  get  more 
emoluments  and  honours  if  they  ban  it;  that 
public  men  will  receive  places  and  titles  if  they 
betray  it;  that  the  professional  man  will  be 
promised  more  aggrandisement,  the  business 
man  more  commerce,  and  the  tradesman  more 
traffic  of  his  kind — if  only  he  put  by  the  flag. 
Most  treacherous  and  insidious  the  temptation 
will  come  to  the  man,  young  and  able,  every- 
where. It  will  say,  ^^You  have  ability;  come 
into  the  light — only  put  that  by;  it  keeps  you 
obscure.  And  what  purpose  does  it  serve  now? 
Be  practical;  come."  And  you  may  weaken 
and  yield  and  enter  the  light  for  the  general 
applause,  but  the  old  idea  will  rankle  deep  down 
till  smothered  out,  and  you  will  stand  in  the 
splendour — a  failure,  miserable,  hopeless,  not 


PRINCIPLE  IN  ACTION  83 

apparent,  indeed,  but  for  all  that,  final.  You 
may  stand  your  ground,  refuse  the  bribe,  up- 
hold the  flag  and  be  rated  a  fool  and  a  failure, 
but  they  who  rate  you  so  will  not  understand 
that  you  have  won  a  battle  greater  than  all  the 
triumphs  of  empires;  you  will  keep  alive  in 
your  soul  true  light  and  enduring  beauty;  you 
will  hear  the  music  eternally  in  the  heart  of  the 
high  enthusiast  and  have  vision  of  ultimate 
victory  that  has  sustained  all  the  world  over 
the  efforts  of  centuries,  that  uplifts  the  indi- 
vidual, consolidates  the  nation,  and  leads  a 
wandering  race  from  the  desert  into  the  Prom- 
ised Land. 

vi 

If  we  are  to  justify  ourselves  in  our  time  we 
must  have  done  with  dispensations.  Many 
honest  men  are  astray  on  the  point  and  think 
attitudes  justifiable  that  are  at  the  root  of  all 
our  failures.  What  is  the  weakness?  It  is  so 
simple  to  explain  and  so  easy  to  understand 
that  one  must  wonder  how  we  have  been  ignor- 
ing it  quietly  and  generally  so  long.  A  man, 
as  we  have  seen,  acknowledges  his  flag  in  cer- 
tain places ;  in  other  places  it  is  challenged  and 


84  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

lie  pulls  it  down.  He  is  dispensed.  He  believes 
in  his  heart,  may  even  write  an  anonymous  let- 
ter to  the  paper,  will  salute  the  flag  again  else- 
where, but  he  mil  not  carry  his  flag  through 
every  fight  and  through  every  day.  When  a 
particular  crisis  arises,  which  involves  our  re- 
public boards,  public  men,  and  business  men  in 
action,  that  requires  a  decision  for  or  against 
the  nation,  he  will  find  it  in  his  place  in  life  not 
wise  to  be  prominent  on  his  own  side,  and  he  is 
silently  absent  from  his  meetings — ^he  gives  a 
subscription  but  excuses  himself  from  attend- 
ance. He  satisfies  himself  with  private  profes- 
sions of  faith  and  whispered  encouragement 
to  those  who  fill  the  gap — ^words  that  won't  be 
heard  at  a  distance — and,  worst  of  all,  he 
thinks,  because  some  stake  in  life  may  be  jeop- 
ardised by  bolder  action,  he  is  justified.  The 
answer  is,  simply  he  is  not  justified.  Nor 
should  anyone  who  is  prepared  to  take  the  risk 
himself  take  it  on  himself  to  absolve  others — 
nor,  least  of  all,  openly  preach  a  milder  doc- 
trine to  lead  others  who  are  timid  to  the  farther 
goal,  believed  in  at  heart.  Encourage  them  by 
all  means  to  practise  their  principles  as  far  as 
they  go;  never  restrict  yours,  or  you  will  find 


PRINCIPLE  IN  ACTION  85 

yourself  saying  things  you  can't  altogether  ap- 
prove; and  if  you  tell  a  man  to  do  things  you 
can't  altogether  approve,  and  keep  on  telling 
him,  it  wears  into  you,  and  a  thing  you  once 
held  in  abhorrence  you  come  to  think  of  it 
with  indifference.  You  change  insensibly.  Old 
friends  rage  at  you,  and  because  of  it  you  rage 
at  them — ^not  knowing  how  you  have  changed. 
You  dare  not  let  what  you  believe  lie  in  abey- 
ance or  say  things  inconsistent  with  it,  else  to- 
morrow you'll  be  puzzled  to  say  what  you  be- 
lieve. You  will  hardly  say  two  things  to  fit 
each  other.  Let  us  have  no  half  policies.  Our 
policy  must  be  full,  clear,  consistent,  to  satisfy 
the  restless,  inquiring  minds ;  when  we  win  all 
such  over,  the  merely  passive  people  will  fol- 
low. It  should  be  clear  that  no  man  can  dis- 
pense himself  or  his  fellow  from  a  grave  duty; 
but  for  all  that  we  have  been  liberal  with  our 
dispensations,  and  it  has  left  us  in  confusion 
and  failure.  On  the  understanding  that  we  will 
be  heroes  to-morrow,  we  evade  being  men  to- 
day. We  think  of  some  hazy  hour  in  the  future 
when  we  may  get  a  call  to  great  things;  we 
realise  not  that  the  call  is  now,  that  the  fight 
is  afoot,  that  we  must  take  the  flag  from  its 


86  PRINCIPLES  OF  FEEEDOM 

hidden  resting-place  and  carry  it  boldly  into 
life.  So  near  a  struggle  may  touch  us  with 
dread;  but  to  dread  provoking  a  fight  is  to 
endure  without  resistance  all  the  consequences 
of  a  lost  battle — a  battle  that  might  have  been 
won.  And  if  we  are  to  be  fit  for  the  heroio 
to-morrow  we  must  arise  and  be  men  to-day. 

vii 

At  times  we  find  ourselves  on  neutral  ground. 
The  exigencies  of  the  struggle  involve  this; 
and  unfortunately  we  have  in  our  midst  sincere 
men  who  do  not  believe  in  restoring  Ireland 
to  her  original  independence.  Perhaps,  from 
a  tendency  to  lose  our  balance  at  times,  it  is 
well  to  have  near  by  these  men  whose  obvious 
sincerity  may  serve  as  a  correcting  influence. 
We  have  to  make  them  one  with  us;  in  the 
meantime  we  meet  them  on  neutral  ground  for 
some  common  purpose.  Yet,  we  must  take  our 
flag  everywhere?  Yes,  that  is  fundamental. 
"What  then  of  the  places  where  men  of  diverg- 
ing views  meet;  do  we  abjure  the  flag?  By 
no  means.  The  understanding  here  is  not  to 
force  our  views  on  others,  but  we  must  keep 
our  principles  clear  in  mind  that  no  hostile 


PRINCIPLE  IN  ACTION  87 

view  be  forced  on  us.  We  must  see  to  it  that 
neutrality  be  observed.  One  of  the  pitfalls  to 
be  aware  of  is,  that  something  which  on  our 
principles  we  should  not  recognise,  is  assumed 
as  recognised  by  others  because  to  attack  it 
would  be  to  violate  neutrality.  But  if  it  may 
not  be  resisted,  it  may  not  be  recognised;  this 
is  neutrality;  it  is  to  stand  on  equal  terms. 
And  since  grave  matters  divide  us — ^not  di- 
rectly concerned  in  our  national  struggle  for 
freedom — let  the  dangerous  idea  be  banished, 
that  in  entering  on  common  ground  we  decry 
all  opposing  beliefs.  For  men  who  hold  beliefs 
as  vital  it  would  not  be  creditable  to  either 
side  to  put  them  easily  by.  No,  we  do  not  ask 
them  to  forget  themselves,  but  to  respect  one 
another — an  entirely  greater  and  more  honour- 
able principle.  On  neutral  ground  a  man  is 
not  called  on  to  abjure  his  flag;  rather  he  and 
his  flag  are  in  sanctuary. 

viii 

When  we  find  the  national  idea  touches  life 
at  every  point,  we  begin  to  realise  how  fre- 
quent the  call  is  to  defend  it  without  warning. 
It   is  not   that  men   directly   raise   the   idea 


88  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

purposely  to  reject  it,  but  that  their  habit  of 
life,  to  which  they  expect  all  to  conform,  is 
unconsciously  assuming  that  our  ruling-  prin- 
ciple can  have  no  place  now  or  in  the  future. 
Their  assumption  that  the  status  quo  cannot 
be  changed  will  be  the  cause  of  most  collision 
at  first ;  and  we  must  be  quietly  ready  with  the 
counter-assumption,  stand  for  the  old  idea  and 
justify  it.  We  must  realise,  too,  that  the  num- 
ber of  people  who  have  definite,  strong,  well 
developed  views  against  ours  are  compara- 
tively small.  This  small  number  embraces  the 
English  Government  that  commands  forces, 
obeying  it  without  reason,  and  influencing  the 
general  mass  of  people  whose  general  attitude 
is  indecision — adrift  with  the  ruling  force.  It 
is  this  general  mass  of  men  we  must  permeate 
with  the  true  idea,  and  give  them  more  decision, 
more  courage,  more  pride  of  race  and  bring 
them  to  prove  worthy  of  the  race.  They  will 
begin  to  have  confidence  in  the  Cause  when  they 
begin  to  see  it  vindicated  amongst  them  day 
by  day ;  and  that  vindication  must  be  our  duty. 
That  duty  will  not  be  to  seek ;  it  will  offer  itself 
and  we  shall  have  our  test.  How?  Consider 
when  men  come  together  for  any  purpose  where 


PRINCIPLE  IN  ACTION  89 

different  views  prevail  and  general  things  of 
no  great  moment  form  the  subject  of  debate — 
suddenly,  unconsciously  or  tentatively,  one  will 
raise  some  idea  that  may  divide  the  company — 
say,  acknowledging  the  English  Crowa  in  Ire- 
land, putting  by  the  claim  for  freedom,  in  the 
foolish  hope  of  some  material  gain.  There  is 
much  nonsense  talked  and  confusion  abroad  on 
this  head,  and  it  is  quite  possible  a  man,  be- 
lieving in  Ireland 's  full  claim,  will  find  himself 
in  a  large  company  who  ought  to  stand  for  Ire- 
land, yet  wiio  have  lost  a  clear  conception  of 
her  rights.  But  he  will  find  that  they  have  no 
clear  conception  the  other  way,  either ;  they  are 
confused  and  generally  pliable;  and  so,  when 
the  challenging  idea  is  introduced,  if  he  is  quick 
and  clear  with  the  vital  points,  he  can  tear 
the  surface  off  the  many  nostrums  of  the  hour 
and  prove  them  mean,  worthless,  and  degrad- 
ing; and,  doing  so,  he  will  be  forming  the 
minds  about  him.  He  must  be  ready;  that  is 
the  great  need.  Understand  how  a  conversa- 
tion is  often  turned  by  a  chance  word,  and  how 
governed  by  one  man  who  has  passionate,  well 
defined  views,  while  others  are  cold  and  unde- 
cided.    Be  that  one  man.     You  do  not  know 


90  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

where  the  circumstances  of  life  will  take  you; 
your  flag  may  be  directly  challenged  to  your 
face,  and  you  must  reveal  yourself.  These  are 
things  to  avoid.  Be  firm,  rather  than  aggres- 
sive; but  be  always  quietly  prepared  for  the 
aggressive  man ;  that  is  to  inspire  confidence  in 
the  timid.  Avoid  vituperation  as  a  disease,  but 
have  your  facts  clear  and  ready  for  friend  or 
foe.  Whenever,  and  wherever  least  expected, 
a  false  idea  comes  wandering  forth,  put  in  at 
once  a  luminous  word  or  two  to  clear  the  air, 
hearten  friends  and  keep  them  steady.  If  you 
find  yourself  alone  in  the  midst  of  opponents, 
who  assume  you  are  with  them  and  expect  your 
co-operation,  you  put  them  right  with  a  word. 
This  will  arrest  them;  they  will  understand 
where  you  stand,  and  that  you  are  ready;  and 
they  will  generally  yield  you  respect.  But 
whether  it  involve  a  fight  or  not,  thus  do  you 
declare  your  attitude.  We  may  conveniently 
call  it — ^putting  up  the  flag. 

is 

It  is  well  to  consider  something  of  the  oppo- 
sition that  confronts  a  man  who  tries  to  fill 
his  life  with  a  brave  purpose.    He  will  be  told 


PRINCIPLE  IN  ACTION  91 

it  is  an  illusion ;  he  is  a  dreamer,  a  crank,  or  a 
fool.  And  it  may  serve  a  purpose  to  see  if 
our  critics  are  blinded  by  no  illusion,  to  con- 
trast our  folly  with  their  wisdom.  Here  is 
one  pushing  by  who  will  not  be  a  fool,  as  he 
thinks — he 's  for  the  emigrant-ship.  Ask  your- 
self if  the  people  who  go  out  from  the  remote 
places  of  Ireland,  quiet- spoken  and  ruddy- 
faced,  and  return  after  a  few  years  loud-voiced 
and  pallid,  have  found  things  exactly  as  their 
hope.  They  protest,  yes;  but  their  voice  and 
colour  belie  them.  Take  the  other  man  who 
does  not  emigrate  but  who  has  his  fling  at  home, 
who  *  ^knocks  around''  and  tells  you  to  do  like- 
wise and  be  no  fool — ^mark  him  for  your  guid- 
ance. You  will  find  his  leisure  is  boisterous, 
but  never  gay.  Catch  him  between  whiles  off 
his  guard  and  you  will  find  the  deadening  lassi- 
tude of  his  life.  This  votary  of  pleasure  has  a 
burden  to  carry  in  whatever  walk  of  life,  high 
or  low.  On  the  higher  plane  he  may  have  a 
more  fastidious  club  or  two,  a  more  epicurean 
sense  of  enjoyment,  more  leisure  and  more 
luxury;  but  the  type  wherever  found  is  the 
same.  Life  is  an  utter  burden  to  him;  in  his 
soul  is  no  interest,  no  inspiration,  no  energy, 


92  PRINCIPLES  OP  FREEDOM 

and  no  hope.  Let  Mm  be  no  object  of  envy. 
Here  a  friend  pats  you  on  the  shoulder: 
*•  Quite  right;  be  neither  an  emigrant  nor  a 
waster ;  but  be  practical ;  have  no  illusions ;  deal 
with  possibilities — who  can  say  what  is  in  the 
future?  We  must  face  these  facts."  Our  con- 
fident friend  lacks  a  sense  of  humour.  He 
would  put  your  plan  by  for  its  bearing  on  the 
future,  but  he  proposes  one  himself  that  the 
future  must  justify.  He  tells  you  circumstances 
will  not  be  in  your  favour:  he  assumes  them 
in  his  o^m.  But  we  only  claim  that  our  prin- 
ciples will  rule  the  future  as  they  have  ruled 
th  past;  for  the  circumstances  no  man  can 
speak.  He  calls  you  a  dreamer  for  your  prin- 
ciples, but  he  can't  show,  now  nor  in  history, 
that  his  exemplars  were  ever  justified.  We  are 
all  dreamers,  then ;  but  some  have  ugly  dreams, 
while  the  dreams  of  others  are  beautiful  worlds, 
star-lighted  and  full  of  music. 

X 

Let  the  newborn  enthusiast,  just  come  ea- 
gerly to  the  flag,  be  warned  of  hours  of  depres- 
sion that  seize  even  the  most  earnest,  the  bold- 
est and  the  strongest.     Our  work  is  the  work 


PRINCIPLE  IN  ACTION  93 

of  men,  subject  to  sucli  vicissitudes  as  hover 
around  all  human  enterprise;  and  every  man 
enrolled  must  face  hard  struggles  and  dark 
hours.  Then  the  depression  rushes  down  like 
a  horrible,  cold,  dark  mist  that  obscures  every 
beautiful  thing  and  every  ray  of  hope.  It  may 
come  from  many  causes :  perhaps,  a  body  not 
too  robust,  worn  down  by  a  tireless  mind ;  per- 
haps, the  memory  of  long  years  of  effort,  seem- 
ingly swallowed  in  oblivion  and  futility;  per- 
haps contact  with  men  on  your  own  side  whose 
presence  there  is  a  puzzle,  who  have  no  char- 
acter and  no  conception  of  the  grandeur  of  the 
Cause,  and  whose  mean,  petty,  underhand  jeal- 
ousies numb  you — ^you  who  think  anyone  claim- 
ing so  fine  a  flag  as  ours  should  be  naturally 
brave,  straightforward  and  generous;  perhaps 
the  seemingly  overwhelming  strength  of  the 
enemy,  and  the  listlessness  of  thousands  who 
would  hail  freedom  with  rapture,  but  who  now 
stand  aloof  in  despair — and  along  with  all  this 
and  intensifying  it,  the  voice  of  our  self-com- 
placent practical  friend,  who  has  but  sarcasm 
for  a  high  impulse,  and  for  an  immutable  prin- 
ciple the  latest  expedient  of  the  hour.  Through 
such  an  experience  must  the  soldier  of  freedom 


94  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

live.  Bnt  as  surely  as  such  an  hour  comes, 
there  comes  also  a  star  to  break  the  darkened 
sky;  let  those  who  feel  the  battle-weariness  at 
times  remember.  When  in  places  there  may 
be  but  one  or  two  to  fight,  it  may  seem  of  no 
avail ;  still  let  them  be  true  and  their  numbers 
will  be  multiplied:  love  of  truth  is  infectious. 
When  progress  is  arrested,  don't  brood  on  what 
is,  but  on  what  was  once  achieved,  what  has 
been  since  survived,  and  what  we  may  yet 
achieve.  If  some  have  grown  lax  and  temporise 
a  little,  with  more  firmness  on  your  part  mingle 
a  little  sympathy  for  them.  It  is  harder  to 
live  a  consistent  life  than  die  a  brave  death. 
Most  men  of  generous  instincts  would  rouse  all 
their  courage  to  a  supreme  moment  and  die 
for  the  Cause ;  but  to  rise  to  that  supreme  mo- 
ment frequently  and  without  warning  is  the 
burden  of  life  for  the  Cause ;  and  it  is  because 
of  its  exhausting  strain  and  exacting  demands 
that  so  many  men  have  failed.  We  must 
get  men  to  realise  that  to  live  is  as  daring  as 
to  die.  But  confusion  has  been  made  in  our 
time  by  the  glib  phrase:  **You  are  not  asked 
now  to  die  for  Ireland,  but  to  live  for  her,'* 
without  insisting  that  the  life  shall  aim  at  the 


PRINOIPLE  IN  ACTION  95 

ideal,  tlie  brave  and  the  true.  To  slip  apolo- 
getically through  existence  is  not  life.  If  such 
a  mean  philosophy  went  abroad,  we  would  soon 
find  the  land  a  place  of  shivering  creatures, 
without  the  capacity  to  live  or  the  courage  to 
die — a  calamity,  surely.  All  these  circum- 
stances make  for  the  hour  of  depression;  and 
it  may  well  be  in  such  an  hour,  amid  apathy  and 
treachery,  cold  friends  and  active  enemies,  with 
worn-down  frame  and  baffled  mind,  you,  plead- 
ing for  the  Old  Cause,  may  feel  your  voice  is 
indeed  a  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness;  and 
it  may  serve  till  the  blood  warms  again  and  the 
imagination  recover  its  glow,  to  think  how  a 
Voice,  that  cried  in  the  wilderness  thousands 
of  years  ago,  is  potent  and  inspiring  now,  where 
the  voice  of  the  '^ practical^'  man  sends  no  whis- 
per across  the  waste  of  years. 

zi 

What,  then,  to  conclude,  must  be  our  deci- 
sion? To  take  our  philosophy  into  life.  When 
we  do  that  generally,  in  a  deep  and  significant 
sense  our  War  of  Independence  will  have  be- 
gun. Let  there  be  no  deferring  a  duty  to  a 
more  convenient  future.    It  is  as  possible  that 


96  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

an  opening  for  freedom  may  be  thrust  on  us, 
as  that  we  shall  be  required  to  organise  a 
formal  war  with  the  usual  movements  of 
armies;  in  our  assumptions  for  the  second,  let 
us  not  be  guilty  of  the  fatal  error  of  over- 
looking the  first.  As  in  other  spheres,  so  in 
politics  we  have  our  conventions ;  and  how  little 
they  may  be  proven  has  been  lately  seen,  when 
England  went  through  a  war  of  debate,*  largely 
unreal,  over  her  constitution  and  her  liberties, 
even  while  foreign  wars  and  complications  were 
still  being  debated ;  and  in  the  middle  of  it  all, 
suddenly,  from  a  local  labour  dispute,  putting 
by  all  thought  of  the  constitution,  feeling  as 
comparatively  insignificant  the  fear  of  inva- 
sion, all  England  stood  shuddering  on  the  verge 
of  frantic  civil  warf ;  and  all  Ireland,  when  the 
moment  of  possible  freedom  was  given,  when 
England  might  have  been  hardly  able  to  save 
herseK,  much  less  to  hold  us — Ireland,  thinking 
and  working  in  old  grooves,  lay  helpless.  Let 
us  draw  the  moral.  We  cannot  tell  what  un- 
suspected development  may  spring  on  us  from 
the  future,  but  we  can  always  be  prepared  by 

*  Debate  over  House  of  Lords, 
t  The  Railway  strike. 


PRINCIPLE  IN  ACTION  97 

understanding  that  the  vital  hour  is  the  hour 
at  hand.  Let  the  brave  choice  now  be  made, 
and  let  the  life  around  be  governed  by  it;  let 
every  man  stand  to  his  colours  and  strike  his 
flag  to  none;  then  shall  we  recover  ground  in 
all  directions,  and  our  time  shall  be  recorded 
not  with  the  deadening  but  with  the  luminous 
years.  In  all  the  vicissitudes  of  the  fight,  let 
us  not  be  distracted  by  the  meanness  of  the 
mere  time-server  nor  the  treachery  of  the 
enemy,  but  be  collected  and  cool;  and  remem- 
bering the  many  who  are  not  with  us  from 
honest  motives  or  unsuspected  fears,  live  to 
show  our  belief  beautiful  and  true  and,  in  the 
eternal  sense,  practical.  Then  shall  those  who 
are  worth  convincing  be  held,  and  our  diifer- 
ence  may  reduce  itself  to  what  is  possible ;  then 
will  they  come  to  realise  that  he  who  maintains 
a  great  faith  unshaken  will  make  more  things 
possible  than  the  opportunist  of  the  hour ;  then 
will  they  understand  how  much  more  is  possible 
than  they  had  ever  dared  to  dream:  they  will 
have  a  vision  of  the  goal ;  and  with  that  vision 
will  be  born  a  steady  enthusiasm,  a  clear  pur- 
pose, and  a  resolute  soul.  The  regeneration  of 
the  land  will  be  no  longer  a  distant  dream  but 


98  PRINCIPLES  OF  FEEEDOM 

a  shaping  reality;  the  living  flame  will  sweep 
through  all  hearts  again ;  and  Ireland  will  enter 
her  last  battle  for  freedom  to  emerge  and  re- 
assume  her  place  among  the  nations  of  the 
earth. 


CHAPTER   VII 

LOYALTY 


TO  be  loyal  to  his  cause  is  the  finest  tribute 
that  can  be  paid  to  any  man.  And  since 
loyalty  to  the  Irish  cause  has  been  the  great 
virtue  of  Irishmen  through  all  history,  it  is 
time  to  have  some  clear  thinking  as  to  who  are 
the  Irish  rebels  and  who  the  true  men.  When 
a  stupid  Government,  grasping  our  reverence 
for  fidelity,  tried  to  ban  our  heroes  by  calling 
them  felons,  it  was  natural  we  should  rejoin 
by  writing  *' The  Felons  of  our  Land'*  and  heap 
ridicule  on  their  purpose.  But  once  this  end 
was  achieved  we  should  have  reverted  to  the 
normal  attitude  and  written  up  as  the  true 
Irish  Loyalists,  Brian  the  Great,  and  Shane  the 
Proud,  the  valiant  Owen  Roe  and  the  peerless 
Tone,  Mitchel  and  Davis — ^irreconcilables  all. 
iWhen  men  revolt  against  an  established  evil  it 
is  their  loyalty  to  the  outraged  truth  we  honour. 

99 


100  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

We  do  not  extol  a  rebel  who  rebels  for  rebel- 
lion's sake.  Let  us  be  clear  on  this  point,  or 
when  we  shall  have  re-established  onr  freedom 
after  centuries  of  effort  it  shall  be  open  to 
every  knave  and  traitor  to  challenge  our  inde- 
pendence and  plot  to  readmit  the  enemy.  Loy- 
alty is  the  fine  attribute  of  the  fine  nature^ 
the  word  has  been  misused  and  maligned  in 
Ireland :  let  us  restore  it  to  its  rightful  honour 
by  remembering  it  to  be  the  virtue  of  our  heroes 
of  all  time.  Li  considering  it  from  this  view- 
point we  shall  find  occasion  to  touch  on  delicate 
positions  that  have  often  baffled  and  worried 
us — the  asserting  of  our  rights  while  using  the 
machinery  of  the  Government  that  denies  them, 
the  burning  question  of  consistency,  our  atti- 
tude towards  the  political  adventurer  on  one 
hand,  and  towards  the  honest  man  of  half- 
measures  on  the  other.  Loyalty  involves  all 
this.  And  it  shows  that  the  man  who  revolts 
to  win  freedom  is  the  same  as  he  who  dies  to 
defend  it.  He  does  not  change  his  face  and 
nature  with  the  changing  times.  He  is  loyal 
always  and  most  wonderfully  lovable,  because 
in  the  darkest  times,  when  banned  as  wild, 
wicked  and  rebelly,  he  is  loyal  still  as  from  the 


LOYALTY  101 

beginning,  and  will  be  to  the  end.  Yes,  Tone 
is  the  trne  Irish  Loyalist,  and  every  aider  and 
abettor  of  the  enemy  a  rebel  to  Ireland  and  the 
Irish  race. 

ii 

When  you  insist  on  examining  the  question 
in  the  light  of  first  principles  your  opportunist 
opponent  at  once  feels  the  weakness  of  his  po- 
sition and  always  turns  the  point  on  your  con- 
sistency. It  is  well,  then,  in  advance  to  under- 
stand the  relative  value  and  importance  of  ar- 
gument as  argument  in  the  statement  of  any 
case.  A  body  of  principles  is  primarily  of 
value,  not  as  affording  a  case  that  can  be  ar- 
gued with  ingenuity,  but  as  enshrining  one 
great  principle  that  shines  through  and  informs 
the  rest,  that  ilkmines  the  mind  of  the  indi- 
vidual, that  warms,  clarifies  and  invigorates — 
that,  so  to  speak,  puts  the  mind  in  focus,  gets' 
the  facts  of  existence  into  perspective,  and 
gives  the  individual  everything  in  its  right 
place  and  true  proportion.  It  brings  a  man  to 
the  point  where  he  does  not  dispute  but  believes. 
He  has  been  wandering  about  cold  and  irreso- 
lute,   tasting   all   philosophies,    or   none,    and 


102  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

drinMng  deep  despair.  He  does  not  under- 
stand the  want  in  his  soul  while  he  has  been 
looking  for  some  panacea  for  its  cure  till  the 
great  light  streams  on  him,  and  instead  of  re- 
ceiving something  he  finds  himself.  That  is  it. 
There  is  a  power  of  vision  latent  in  us,  clouded 
by  error;  the  true  philosophy  dissipates  the 
cloud  and  leaves  the  vision  clear,  wonderful  and 
inspiring.  He  who  acquired  that  vision  is  im- 
pervious to  argument — it  is  not  that  he  de- 
spises argument;  on  the  contrary,  he  always 
uses  it  to  its  full  length.  But  he  has  had  awak- 
ened within  him  something  which  the  mere  lo- 
gician can  never  deduce,  and  that  mysterious 
something  is  the  explanation  of  his  transformed 
life.  He  was  a  doubter,  a  falterer,  a  failure; 
he  has  become  a  believer,  a  fighter,  a  conqueror. 
You  miss  his  significance  completely  when  you 
take  him  for  a  theorist.  The  theorist  pro- 
pounds a  view  to  which  he  must  convert  the 
world ;  the  philosopher  has  a  rule  of  life  to  im- 
mediately put  into  practice.  His  spirit  flashes 
with  a  swiftness  that  can  be  encircled  by  no 
theory.  It  is  his  glory  to  have  over  and  above 
a  new  penetrating  argument  in  the  mind — a 
new  and  wonderful  vitality  in  the  blood.     The 


LOYALTY  103 

unbeliever,  near  by,  still  muddled  by  Ms  cold 
theories,  will  argue  and  debate  till  bis  intellect 
is  in  a  tangle.  He  fails  to  see  that  a  man  of 
intellectual  agility  might  frame  a  theory  and 
argue  it  out  ably,  and  then  suddenly  turn  over 
and  with  equal  dexterity  argue  the  other  side. 
Do  we  not  have  set  debates  with  speakers  ap- 
pointed on  each  side?  That  is  dialectic — a 
trick  of  the  mind.  But  philosophy  is  the  wine 
of  the  spirit.  The  capacity  then  to  argue  the 
point  is  not  the  justification  of  a  philosophy. 
That  justification  must  be  found  in  the  virtue 
of  the  philosophy  that  gives  its  believer  vision 
and  grasp  of  life  as  a  whole,  that  warms  and 
quickens  his  heart  and  makes  him  in  spirit 
buoyant,  beautiful,  wise  and  daring. 

•  •  • 
ui 

Let  us  come  now  to  that  burning  question  of 
consistency.  ^*Very  well,  you  won't  acknowl- 
edge the  English  Crown.  Why  then  use  Eng- 
lish coins  and  stamps?  You  don't  recognise 
the  Parliament  at  Westminster.  Why  then 
recognise  the  County  Councils  created  by  Bill 
at  Westminster?  Why  avail  of  all  the  Local 
Government  machinery?'' — and  so  forth.    The 


104  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

argTiment  is  a  familiar  one,  and  the  answer  is 
simple.  Though  no  guns  are  thundering  now, 
Ireland  is  virtually  in  a  state  of  war.  We  are 
fighting  to  recover  independence.  The  enemy 
has  had  to  relax  somewhat  in  the  exigencies  of 
the  struggle  and  to  concede  all  these  positions 
of  local  government  and  enterprise  now  in  ques- 
tion. We  take  these  posts  as  places  conceded 
in  the  fight  and  avail  of  them  to  strengthen,  de- 
velop and  uplift  the  country  and  prepare  her 
to  carry  the  last  post.  Surely  this  is  adequate. 
On  a  field  of  battle  it  is  always  to  the  credit  of 
a  general  to  capture  an  enemy's  post  and  use 
it  for  the  final  victory.  It  is  a  sign  of  the  bat- 
tle's  progress,  and  tells  the  distant  watchers 
on  the  hills  how  the  fight  is  faring  and  who  is 
going  to  vnn.  There  would  be  consternation 
away  from  the  field  only  if  word  should  come 
that  the  soldiers  had  gone  into  the  tents  of  the 
enemy,  acknowledging  him  and  accepting  his 
flag.  That  is  the  point  to  question.  There  can 
be  no  defence  for  the  occupying  of  any  post 
conceded  by  the  enemy.  It  may  be  held  for  or 
against  Ireland ;  any  man  accepting  it  and  sur- 
rendering his  flag  to  hold  it  stands  condemned 
thereby.    That  is  clear.    Yet  it  may  be  objected 


LOYALTY  105 

that  such  a  clear  choice  is  not  put  to  most  of 
those  undertaking  the  local  government  of  Ire- 
land, that  few  are  conscious  of  such  an  issue 
and  few  governed  by  it.  It  is  true.  But  for 
all  that  the  machinery  of  local  government  is 
clearly  under  popular  control,  and  as  clearly 
worked  for  an  immediate  good,  preparing  for 
a  greater  end.  Men  unaware  of  it  are  uncon- 
sciously working  for  the  general  development 
of  the  country  and  recovering  her  old  power 
and  influence.  Those  conscious  of  the  deeper 
issue  enter  every  position  to  further  that  de- 
velopment and  make  the  end  obvious  when  the 
alien  Government — finding  those  powers  con- 
ceded to  sap  further  resistance  are  on  the  con- 
trary used  to  conquer  wider  fields — endeavors 
to  force  the  popular  government  back  to  the 
purposes  of  an  old  and  failing  tyranny.  That 
is  the  nature  of  the  struggle  now.  At  periods 
the  enemy  tries  to  stem  the  movement,  and  then 
the  fight  becomes  general  and  keen  around  a 
certain  position.  In  our  time  there  were  the 
Land  Leagues,  the  Land  War,  fights  for  Home 
Rule,  Universities,  Irish ;  and  these  fights  ended 
in  Land  Acts,  Local  Government  Acts,  Univer- 
sity Acts,  and  the  conceding  of  pride  of  place 


106  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

to  the  native  language  in  university  life.  Every 
position  gained  is  a  step  forward ;  it  is  accepted 
as  sucli,  and  so  is  justified.  For  anyone  who 
grasps  the  serions  purpose  of  recovering  Ire- 
land's independence  all  along  the  line,  the  sug- 
gestion that  we  should  abandon  all  machinery 
of  local  government  and  enterprise — ^because 
they  are  *^ Government  positions" — to  men 
definitely  attached  to  the  alien  garrison  is  so 
foolish  as  not  to  be  even  entertained.  When 
our  attitude  is  questioned  let  it  be  made  clear. 
That  is  the  final  answer  to  the  man  who  chal- 
lenges our  consistency:  we  are  carrying  the 
trenches  of  the  enemy. 

iv 

Even  while  dismissing  a  false  idea  of  con- 
sistency we  have  to  make  clear  another  view 
still  remote  from  the  general  mind.  If  we  are 
to  have  an  effective  army  of  freedom  we  must 
enrol  only  men  who  have  a  clear  conception  of 
the  goal,  a  readiness  to  yield  full  allegiance, 
and  a  determination  to  fight  always  so  as  to 
reflect  honour  on  the  flag.  The  importance  of 
this  will  be  felt  only  when  we  come  to  deal  with 
concrete  cases.    While  human  nature  is  what  it 


LOYALTY  107 

is  we  will  have  always  on  the  outskirts  of  every 
movement  a  certain  type  of  political  adven- 
turer who  is  ready  to  transfer  his  allegiance 
from  one  party  to  another  according  as  he 
thinks  the  time  serves.  He  has  no  principle 
but  to  be  always  with  the  ascendant  party,  and 
to  succeed  in  that  aim  he  is  ready  to  court 
and  betray  every  party  in  turn.  As  a  result, 
he  is  a  character  well  known  to  all.  The  honest 
man  who  has  been  following  the  wrong  path, 
and  after  earnest  inquiry  comes  to  the  flag,  we 
readily  distinguish.  But  it  is  fatal  to  any  en- 
terprise where  the  adventurer  is  enlisted  and 
where  his  influence  is  allowed  to  dominate.  It 
may  seem  strange  that  such  men  are  given 
entry  to  great  movements:  the  explanation  is 
found  in  the  desire  of  pioneers  to  make  con- 
verts at  once  and  convince  the  unconverted  by 
the  confidence  of  growing  numbers.  We  ignore 
the  danger  to  our  growing  strength  when  the 
adventurer  comes  along,  loud  in  protest  of  his 
support — ^he  is  always  atfable  and  plausible, 
and  is  received  as  a  **man  of  experience' ';  and 
in  our  anxiety  for  further  strength  we  are  apt 
to  admit  him  without  reserve.  But  we  must 
make  sure  of  our  man.    We  must  keep  in  mind 


108  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

that  an  alliance  with  the  adventurer  is  more 
dangerous  than  his  opposition;  and  we  must 
remember  the  general  public,  typified  by  the 
man  in  the  street  whom  we  wish  to  convince,  is 
quietly  studying  us,  attracted  perhaps  by  our 
principles  and  coming  nearer  to  examine.  If 
he  knows  nothing  else,  he  knows  the  unprin- 
cipled man,  and  when  he  sees  such  in  our  ranks 
and  councils  he  mil  not  wait  to  argue  or  ask 
questions;  he  will  go  away  and  remain  away. 
The  extent  to  which  men  are  ruled  by  the  old 
adage:  ^'Show  me  your  company  and  I'll  tell 
you  what  you  are,"  is  more  mdespread  than 
we  think.  Moreover,  consistency  in  a  fine  sense 
is  involved  in  our  decision.  We  fight  for  free- 
dom, not  for  the  hope  of  material  profit  or  com- 
fort, but  because  every  fine  instinct  of  manhood 
demands  that  man  be  free,  and  life  beautiful 
and  brave,  and  surely  in  such  a  splendid  bat- 
tle to  have  as  allies  mean,  crafty  profit-seekers 
would  be  amazing.  Let  us  be  loyal  in  the  deep 
sense,  and  let  us  not  be  afraid  of  being  few  at 
first.  An  earnest  band  is  more  effective  than 
a  discreditable  multitude.  That  band  will  in- 
crease in  numbers  and  strength  till  it  becomes 
the  nucleus  of  an  army  that  will  be  invincible. 


LOYALTY  109 


The  fine  sense  of  consistency  that  keeps  us 
clear  of  the  adventurer  decides  also  our  atti- 
tude to  the  well-meaning  man  of  half -measures. 
He  says  separation  from  England  is  not  pos- 
sible now  and  suggests  some  alternative,  if  not 
Home  Rule,  Grattan's  Parliament,  or  leaving 
it  an  open  question.  In  the  general  view  this 
seems  sensible,  and  we  are  tempted  to  make  an 
alliance  based  on  such  a  ground;  and  the  alli- 
ance is  made.  What  ensues?  Men  come  to- 
gether who  believe  in  complete  freedom,  others 
who  believe  in  partial  freedom  that  may  lead 
to  complete  freedom,  and  others  who  are  satis- 
fied with  partial  freedom  as  an  end.  Before 
long  the  alliance  ends  in  a  deadlock.  The  man 
of  the  most  far-reaching  view  knows  that  every 
immediate  action  taken  must  be  consistent  with 
the  wider  view  and  the  farther  goal,  if  that 
goal  is  to  be  attained;  and  he  finds  that  his 
ultimate  principle  is  frequently  involved  in 
some  action  proposed  for  the  moment.  When 
such  a  moment  comes  he  must  be  loyal  to  his 
flag  and  to  a  principle  that  if  not  generally  ac- 
knowledged is  an  abiding  rule  with  him;  but 


110  PRINCIPLES  OP  FREEDOM 

his  allies  refuse  to  be  bound  by  a  principle  that 
is  an  unwritten  law  for  him  because  the  law  is 
not  written  down  for  them.  This  is  the  root  of 
the  trouble.  The  friends,  thinking  to  work  to- 
gether for  some  common  purpose,  find  the  un- 
settled issue  intrudes,  and  a  debate  ensues  that 
leads  to  angry  words,  recriminations,  bad  feel- 
ing and  disruption.  The  alliance  based  on  half 
measures  has  not  fulfilled  its  own  purpose,  but 
it  has  sown  suspicion  between  the  honest  men 
whom  it  brought  together;  that  is  no  good  re- 
sult from  the  practical  proposal.  There  is  an 
inference:  men  who  are  conscious  of  a  clear 
complete  demand  should  form  their  own  plans, 
equally  full  of  care  and  resolution,  and  go  ahead 
on  their  own  account.  But  we  hear  a  plaintive 
cry  abroad:  *'0h,  another  split;  that^s  Irish- 
men all  over — can  never  unite,"  etc.  We  will 
not  turn  aside  for  the  plaintive  people ;  but  let 
it  be  understood  there  can  be  an  independent 
co-operation,  where  of  use,  with  those  honest 
men  who  will  not  go  the  whole  way.  That  inde- 
pendent co-operation  can  serve  the  full  purpose 
of  the  binding  alliance  that  has  proved  fatal. 
Above  all,  let  there  be  no  charge  of  bad  faith 
against  the  earnest  man  who   chooses  other 


LOYALTY  111 

ways  than  ours ;  it  is  altogether  indefensible  be- 
cause we  disagree  with  him  to  call  his  motives 
in  question.  Often  he  is  as  earnest  as  we  are ; 
often  has  given  longer  and  greater  service,  and 
only  qualifies  his  own  attitude  in  anxiety  to 
meet  others.  To  this  we  cannot  assent,  but  to 
charge  him  with  bad  faith  is  flagrantly  unjust 
and  always  calamitous.  In  getting  rid  of  the 
deadlock  we  have  too  often  fallen  to  furiously 
fighting  with  one  another.  Let  us  bear  this  in 
mind,  and  concern  ourselves  more  with  the  com- 
mon enemy ;  but  let  not  the  hands  of  the  men  in 
the  vanguard  be  tied  by  alien  King,  Constitu- 
tion, or  Parliament.  All  the  conditions  grow 
more  definite  and  seem,  perhaps,  too  eTiacting; 
remember  the  greatness  of  the  enterprise. 
Suppose  in  the  building  of  a  mighty  edifice  the 
architect  at  any  point  were  careless  or  slurred 
over  a  difficulty,  trusting  to  luck  to  bring  it 
right,  how  the  whole  building  would  go  awry 
and  what  a  mighty  coiiapse  would  follow.  Let 
us  stick  to  our  colours  and  have  no  fear.  When 
all  these  principles  have  been  combined  into 
one  consistent  whole  a  light  will  flash  over 
the  land  and  the  old  spirit  will  be  reborn;  the 
mean  will  be  purged  of  their  meanness,  the 


112  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

timid  heartened  with  a  fine  courage,  and 
the  fearless  will  be  justified:  the  land  will  be 
awake,  militant  and  marching  to  victory. 

vi 

This  is,  surely,  the  fine  view  of  loyalty.  Let 
us  write  it  on  our  banners  and  proclaim  it  to 
the  world.  It  is  consistent,  honourabUj  fearless 
and  immutable.  What  is  said  here  to-day  with 
enthusiasm,  exactness  and  care,  will  stand  with- 
out amendation  or  enlargement,  if  in  a  tempo- 
rary reverse  we  are  called  to  stand  in  the  dock 
to-morrow ;  or  if,  finely  purged  in  the  battle  of 
freedom,  we  come  through  our  last  fight  with 
splendid  triumph,  our  loyalty  is  there  still, 
shining  like  a  great  sun,  the  same  beautiful, 
unchanging  thing  that  has  lighted  us  through 
every  struggle — perhaps  now  to  guide  us  in 
framing  a  constitution  and  giving  to  a  world, 
distracted  by  kings,  presidents  and  theorists,  a 
new  polity  for  nations.  A  waverer,  half-caught 
between  the  light,  half  fearful  with  an  old  fear, 
pleads:  *'This  is  too  much — ^we  are  men,  not 
angels.'^  Precisely,  we  are  not  angels;  and  be- 
cause of  our  human  weakness,  our  erring  minds, 
our  sudden  passions,  the  most  confident  of  us 


LOYALTY  113 

may  at  any  moment  find  himself  in  the  mud. 
What,  then,  will  uplift  him  if  he  has  been  a 
waverer  in  principle  as  well  as  in  fact?  He  is 
helpless,  disgraced  and  undone.  Let  him  know 
in  time  w^e  do  not  set  up  fine  principles  in  a 
fine  conceit  that  we  can  easily  live  up  to  them, 
but  in  the  full  consciousness  that  we  can  pos- 
sibly live  away  from  them.  That  is  the  bed- 
rock truth.  When  the  man  of  finer  faith  by 
any  slip  comes  to  the  earth,  he  has  to  uplift 
him  a  staff  that  never  fails,  and  to  guide  him 
a  principle  that  strengthens  him  for  another 
fight,  to  go  forth,  in  a  sense  Alexander  never 
dreamed  of,  to  conquer  new  worlds.  'Tis  the 
faith  that  is  in  him,  and  the  flag  he  serves,  that 
make  a  man  worthy;  and  the  meanest  may  be 
with  the  highest  if  he  be  true  and  give  good 
service.  Let  us  put  by  then  the  broken  reed 
and  the  craft  of  little  minds,  and  give  us  for 
our  saving  hope  the  banner  of  the  angels  and 
the  loyalty  of  gods  and  men. 


CHAPTER  Vni 


WOMANHOOD 


'*And   another   said:    I  have   married   a   wife  and  therefore 
I  cannot  come." 

YES,  and  we  have  been  satisfied  always  to 
blame  the  wife,  without  noticing  the  man 
who  is  fond  of  his  comfort  first  of  all,  who  slips 
quietly  away  to  enjoy  a  quiet  smoke  and  a  quiet 
glass  in  some  quiet  nook — always  securing  his 
escape  by  the  readiest  excuse.  We  are  com- 
ing now  to  consider  the  aspect  of  the  question 
that  touches  our  sincere  manhood;  but  let  no 
one  think  we  overlook  that  mean  type  of  man 
who  evades  every  call  to  duty  on  the  comfort- 
able plea:    '*I  have  married  a  wife." 

1 

When  the  mere  man  approaches  the  woman 
to  study  her,  we  can  imagine  the  fair  ones  get- 
ting together  and  nudging  one  another  in  keen 
amusement  as  to  what  this  seer  is  going  to  say. 
It  is  often  sufficiently  amusing  when  the  clumsy 

114 


WOMANHOOD  115 

male  approaches  her  with  self-satisfied  air, 
thinking  he  has  the  secret  of  her  mysterious 
being.  I  have  no  intention  here  of  entering  a 
rival  search  for  the  secret.  But  we  can,  per- 
haps, startle  the  gay  ones  from  merriment  to 
gravity  by  stating  the  simple  fact  that  every 
man  stands  in  some  relationship  to  woman, 
either  as  son,  brother,  or  husband;  and  if  it 
be  admitted  that  there  is  to  be  a  fight  to-mor- 
row, then  there  are  some  things  to  be  settled 
to-day.  How  is  the  woman  training  for  to- 
morrow? How,  then,  will  the  man  stand  by 
that  very  binding  relationship  I  Will  clinging 
arms  hold  him  back  or  proud  ones  wave  him 
on?  Will  he  have,  in  place  of  a  comrade  in 
the  fight,  a  burden;  or  will  the  battle  that  has 
too  often  separated  them  but  give  them  closer 
bonds  of  union  and  more  intimate  knowledge  of 
the  wonderful  thing  that  is  Life! 

ii 

I  wish  to  concentrate  on  one  heroic  example 
of  Irish  Womanhood  that  should  serve  as  a 
model  to  this  generation ;  and  I  do  not  mean  to 
dwell  on  much  that  would  require  detailed  ex- 
amination.    But  some  points  should  be  indi- 


116  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

cated.  For  example,  the  awakening  conscious- 
ness of  our  womanhood  is  troubling  itself 
rightly  over  the  woman's  place  in  the  com- 
munity, is  concentrating  on  the  type  delineated 
in  *'The  Doll's  House,"  and  is  agitating  for  a 
more  honourable  and  dignified  place.  We  ap- 
plaud the  pioneers  thus  fighting  for  their  hon- 
our and  dignity:  but  let  them  not  make  the 
mistake  of  assuming  the  men  are  wholly  re- 
sponsible for  the  ^^ Doll's  House,"  and  the 
women  would  come  out  if  they  could.  We  have 
noticed  the  man  who  prefers  his  ease  to  any 
troubling  duty:  he  has  his  mate  in  the  woman 
who  prefers  to  be  wooed  with  trinkets,  choco- 
lates, and  the  theatre  to  a  more  beautiful  way 
of  life,  that  would  give  her  a  nobler  place  but 
more  strenuous  conditions.  Again,  the  man  is 
not  always  the  lord  of  the  house.  He  is  as 
often,  if  not  more  frequently,  its  slave.  Then 
there  are  the  conventions  of  life.  In  place  of 
a  fine  sense  of  courtesy  prevailing  between  man 
and  woman,  which  would  recognise  with  the 
woman's  finer  sensibility  a  fine  self-reliance, 
and  with  the  man's  greater  strength  a  fine  gen- 
tleness, we  have  a  false  code  of  manners,  by 
which  the  woman  is  to  be  taken  about,  petted 


WOMANHOOD  117 

and  treated  generally  as  the  useless  being  slie 
often  is ;  while  the  man  becomes  an  effeminate 
creature  that  but  cumbers  the  earth.  Fine 
courtesy  and  fine  comradeship  go  together. 
But  we  have  allowed  a  standard  to  gain  recog- 
nition that  is  a  danger  alike  to  the  dignity  of 
our  womanhood  and  the  virility  of  our  man- 
hood. It  is  for  us  who  are  men  to  labour 
for  a  finer  spirit  in  our  manhood:  we  cannot 
throw  the  blame  for  any  weakness  over  on  ex- 
ternal conditions.  The  woman  is  in  the  same 
position.  She  must  understand  that  greater 
than  the  need  of  the  suffrage  is  the  more  urgent 
need  of  making  her  fellow-woman  spirited  and 
self-reliant,  ready  rather  to  anticipate  a  danger 
than  to  evade  it.  "When  she  is  thus  trained,  not 
all  the  men  of  all  the  nations  can  deny  her 
recognition  and  equality. 

iii 

For  the  battle  of  to-morrow  then  there  is  a 
preliminary  fight  to-day.  The  woman  must 
come  to  this  point,  too.  In  life  there  is  fre- 
quently so  much  meanness,  a  man  is  often  called 
to  acknowledge  some  degrading  standard  or 
fight  for  the  very  recognition  of  manhood,  and 


118  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

the  woman  must  stand  in  with  him  or  help  to 
pull  him  down.  Let  her  understand  this  and 
her  duty  is  present  and  urgent.  The  man  so 
often  wavers  on  the  verge  of  the  right  path,  the 
woman  often  decides  him.  If  she  is  nobler  than 
he,  as  is  frequently  the  case,  she  can  lift  him  to 
her  level ;  if  she  is  meaner,  as  she  often  is,  she 
as  surely  drags  him  down.  When  they  are  both 
equal  in  spirit  and  nobility  of  nature,  how  the 
world  is  filled  with  a  glory  that  should  assure 
us,  if  nothing  else  could,  of  the  truth  of  the 
Almighty  God  and  a  beautiful  Eternity  to  ex- 
plain the  origin  and  destiny  of  their  wonderful 
existence.  They  are  indispensable  to  each 
other:  if  they  stand  apart,  neither  can  realise 
in  its  fulness  the  beauty  and  glory  of  life.  Let 
the  man  and  woman  see  this,  and  let  them  know 
in  the  day  that  is  at  hand,  how  the  challenge 
may  come  from  some  petty  authority  of  the 
time  that  rules  not  by  its  integrity  but  by  its 
favourites.  We  are  cursed  with  such  authority, 
and  many  a  one  drives  about  in  luxury  because 
he  is  obsequious  to  it :  he  prefers  to  be  a  para- 
site and  to  live  in  splendour  than  be  a  man  and 
live  in  straits.  He  has  what  Bernard  Shaw  so 
aptly  calls  *Hhe  soul  of  a  servant.''    If  we  are 


WOMANHOOD  119 

to  prepare  for  a  braver  future,  let  us  fight  this 
evil  thing;  if  we  are  to  put  by  national  servi- 
tude, let  us  begin  by  driving  out  individual  ob- 
sequiousness. This  is  our  training  ground  for 
to-morrow.  Let  the  woman  realise  this,  and 
at  least  as  many  women  as  men  will  prefer 
privation  with  self-respect  to  comfort  with  con- 
tempt. Let  us,  then,  in  the  name  of  our  com- 
mon nature,  ask  those  who  have  her  training 
in  hand,  to  teach  the  woman  to  despise  the  man 
of  menial  soul  and  to  loathe  the  luxury  that  is 
his  price. 

iv 

I  wish  to  come  to  the  heroic  type  of  Irish 
Womanhood.  When  we  need  to  hearten  our- 
selves or  others  for  a  great  enterprise,  we  in- 
stinctively turn  to  the  examples  of  heroes  and 
heroines  who,  in  similar  difficulties  to  ours, 
have  entered  the  fight  bravely,  and  issued  hero- 
ically, leaving  us  a  splendid  heritage  of  fidelity 
and  achievement.  It  is  little  to  our  credit  that 
our  heroes  are  so  little  known.  It  is  less  to 
our  credit  that  our  heroines  are  hardly  known 
at  all;  and  when  we  praise  or  sing  of  one  our 
selection  is  not  always  the  happiest.    How  often 


120  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

in  the  concert-hall  or  drawing-room  do  we  get 
emotional  when  someone  sings  in  tremnlous 
tones,  *'She  is  far  from  the  Land."  There  is 
a  feeling  for  poetry  in  our  lives,  a  feeling  that 
patriotism  will  not  have  it,  a  melting  pity  for 
the  love  that  went  to  wreck,  a  sympathy  for 
ourselves  and  everybody  and  everything — a  re- 
laxing of  all  the  nerves  in  a  wave  of  sentiment. 
This  emotion  is  of  the  enervating  order.  There 
is  no  sweep  of  strong  fire  through  the  blood, 
no  tightening  grip  on  life,  no  set  resolve  to 
stand  to  the  flag  and  see  the  battle  through. 
It  is  well,  then,  a  generation  that  has  heard 
from  a  thousand  platforms,  in  plaintive  notes, 
of  Sarah  Curran  and  her  love  should  turn  to 
the  braver  and  more  beautiful  model  of  her 
who  was  the  wife  of  Tone. 

V 

When  we  think  of  the  qualities  that  are  dis- 
tinctive of  the  woman,  we  have  in  mind  a  finer 
gentleness,  sensibility,  sympathy  and  tender- 
ness ;  and  when  we  have  these  qualities  intensi- 
fied in  any  woman,  and  with  them  combined  the 
endurance,  courage  and  daring  that  are  taken 
as  the  manly  virtues,  we  have  a  woman  of  the 


WOMANHOOD  121 

heroic  type.  Of  such  a  type  was  the  wife  of 
Tone.  We  can  speak  her  praise  without  fear, 
for  she  was  put  to  the  test  in  every  way,  and 
in  every  way  found  marvellously  true.  For 
her  devotion  to,  and  encouragement  of,  her 
great  husband  in  his  great  work,  she  would 
have  won  our  high  praise,  even  if,  when  he 
was  stricken  down  and  she  was  bereft  of  his 
wonderful  love  and  buoyant  spirits,  she  had 
proved  forgetful  of  his  work  and  the  glory  of 
his  name.  But  she  was  bereft,  and  she  was 
then  found  most  marvellously  true.  Her  devo- 
tion to  Tone,  while  he  was  living  and  fighting, 
might  be  explained  by  the  woman's  passionate 
attachment  to  the  man  she  loved.  It  is  the 
woman's  tenderness  that  is  most  evident  in 
these  early  years,  but  there  is  shining  evidence 
of  the  fortitude  that  showed  her  true  nobility 
in  the  darker  after-years.  It  was  no  ordinary 
love  that  bound  them,  and  reading  the  record 
of  their  lives  this  stands  out  clear  and  beau- 
tiful. Tone,  whom  we  know  as  jjatient  organ- 
iser, tenacious  fighter,  far-seeing  thinker,  in- 
domitable spirit — a  bom  leader  of  men — ^writes 
to  his  wife  with  the  passionate  simplicity  of 
an  enraptured  child:     **I  doat  upon  you  and 


122  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

the  babes.''  And  his  letters  end  thus:  **Kiss 
the  babies  for  me  ten  thousand  times.  God 
Ahnighty  for  ever  bless  you,  my  dearest  life 
and  soul."  (This  from  the  *^ French  Atheist." 
I  hope  his  traducers  are  heartily  ashamed  of 
themselves.)  Nor  is  it  strange.  When,  in  the 
beginning  of  his  enterprise,  he  is  in  America, 
preparing  to  go  to  France  on  his  great  mission, 
he  is  troubled  by  the  thought  of  his  defenceless 
ones.  In  the  crisis  how  does  his  wife  act! 
Does  she  wind  clinging  arms  around  him,  tell- 
ing him  with  tears,  of  their  children  and  his 
early  vows,  and  beseeching  him  to  think  of  his 
love  and  forget  his  country?  No;  let  the  diary 
speak;  ^'Mj  wife  especially,  whose  courage 
and  whose  zeal  for  my  honour  and  interests 
were  not  in  the  least  abated  by  all  her  past  suf- 
ferings, supplicated  me  to  let  no  consideration 
of  her  or  our  children  stand  for  a  moment  in 
the  way  of  my  engagements  to  our  friends  and 
my  duty  to  my  country,  adding  that  she  would 
answer  for  our  family  during  my  absence,  and 
that  the  same  Providence  which  had  so  often, 
as  it  were,  miraculously  preserved  us,  would, 
she  was  confident,  not  desert  us  now."  It  is 
the  unmistakable  accent  of  the  woman.    She  is 


WOMANHOOD  123 

quivering  as  she  sends  him  forth,  but  the  spirit 
in  her  eyes  would  put  a  trembling  man  to  shame 
— a  spirit  that  her  peerless  husband  matched 
but  no  man  could  surpass.  Her  fortitude  was 
to  be  more  terribly  tried  in  the  terrible  after- 
time,  when  the  Cause  went  down  in  disaster 
and  Tone  had  to  answer  with  his  life.  No  trib- 
ute could  be  so  eloquent  as  the  letter  he  wrote 
to  her  when  the  last  moment  had  come  and  his 
doom  was  pronounced:  ^^ Adieu,  dearest  love, 
I  find  it  impossible  to  finish  this  letter.  Give 
my  love  to  Mary ;  and,  above  all,  remember  you 
are  now  the  only  parent  of  our  dearest  chil- 
dren, and  that  the  best  proof  you  can  give  of 
your  affection  for  me  will  be  to  preserve  your- 
self for  their  education.  God  Almighty  bless 
you  all."  That  letter  is  like  Stephens'  speech 
from  the  dock,  eloquent  for  what  is  left  unsaid. 
There  is  no  wailing  for  her,  least  of  all  for 
himself,  not  that  their  devoted  souls  were  not 
on  the  rack:  *'As  no  words  can  express  what 
I  feel  for  you  and  our  children,  I  shall  not 
attempt  it;  complaint  of  any  kind  would  be 
beneath  your  courage  and  mine'' — ^but  their 
souls,  that  were  destined  to  suffer,  came  sub- 
limely through  the  ordeal.     When  Tone  left 


124  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

his  children  as  a  trust  to  his  wife,  he  knew 
from  the  intimacy  of  their  union  what  we  learn 
from  the  after-event,  how  that  trust  might  be 
placed  and  how  faithfully  it  would  be  fulfilled. 
What  a  tribute  from  man  to  wife!  How  that 
trust  was  fulfilled  is  in  evidence  in  every  step 
of  the  following  years.  Remembering  Tone's 
son  who  survived  to  write  the  memoirs  was 
a  child  at  his  father's  death,  his  simple  tribute 
written  in  manhood  is  eloquent  in  the  ex- 
treme: ^'I  was  brought  up  by  my  surviving 
parent  in  all  the  principles  and  in  all  the  feel- 
ings of  my  father" — of  itself  it  would  suffice. 
But  we  can  follow  the  years  between  and  find 
moving  evidence  of  the  fulfilment  of  the  trust. 
We  see  her  devotion  to  her  children  and  her 
proud  care  to  preserve  their  independence  and 
her  own.  She  puts  by  patronage,  having  a 
higher  title  as  the  widow  of  a  General  of 
France;  and  she  wins  the  respect  of  the  great 
ones  of  France  under  the  Republic  and  the 
Empire.  Luci^n  Buonaparte,  a  year  after 
Tone's  death,  pleaded  before  the  Council  of 
Five  Hundred,  in  warm  and  eloquent  praise: 
'*If  the  services  of  Tone  were  not  sufficient  of 
themselves  to  rouse  your  feelings,  I  might  men- 


WOMANHOOD  125 

tion  the  independent  spirit  and  firmness  of  that 
noble  woman  who,  on  the  tomb  of  her  husband 
and  her  brother,  mingles  with  her  sighs  aspira- 
tions for  the  deliverance  of  Ireland.  I  would 
attempt  to  give  you  an  expression  of  that  Irish 
spirit  which  is  blended  in  her  countenance  with 
the  expression  of  her  grief.  Such  were  those 
women  of  Sparta,  who,  on  the  return  of  their 
countrymen  from  the  battle,  when  with  anxious 
looks  they  ran  over  the  ranks  and  missed 
amongst  them  their  sons,  their  husbands,  and 
their  brothers,  exclaimed, '  He  died  for  his  coun- 
try; he  died  for  the  Republic.^  *'  When  the 
Eepublic  fell,  and  in  the  upheaval  her  rights 
were  ignored,  she  went  to  the  Emperor  Napo- 
leon in  person  and,  recalling  the  services  of 
Tone,  sought  naturalization  for  her  son  to  se- 
cure his  career  in  the  army;  and  to  the  wonder 
of  all  near  by,  the  Emperor  heard  her  with 
marked  respect  and  immediately  granted  her 
request.  She  sought  only  this  for  her  surviv- 
ing son.  She  had  seen  two  children  die — there 
was  moving  pathos  in  the  daughter's  death — 
and  now  she  was  standing  by  the  last.  Never 
was  child  guarded  more  faithfully  or  sent  more 
proudly  on  his  path  in  life.     One  should  read 


126  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

the  memoirs  to  understand,  and  pause  fre- 
quently to  consider:  how  she  promised  her  hus- 
band bravely  in  the  beginning  that  she  would 
answer  for  their  children,  and  how,  in  what  she 
afterwards  styled  the  hyperbole  of  grief,  she 
was  called  to  fulfil  to  the  letter,  and  was  found 
faithful,  with  an  unexampled  strength  and  de- 
votion; how  she  saw  two  children  struck  down 
by  a  fatal  disease,  and  how  she  drew  the  sur- 
viving son  back  to  health  by  her  watchful  care 
to  send  him  on  his  college  and  military  career 
with  loving  pride;  how,  when  a  Minister  of 
France,  irritated  at  her  putting  by  his  patron- 
age, roughly  told  her  he  could  not  *^take  the 
Emperor  by  the  collar  to  place  Mr.  Tone^^ — 
she  went  to  the  Emperor  in  person,  with  dignity 
but  without  fear,  and  won  his  respect;  how 
the  suggestion  of  the  mean-minded  that  her 
demand  was  a  pecuniary  one,  drew  from  her 
the  proud  boast  that  in  all  her  misfortunes  she 
had  never  learned  to  hold  out  her  hand;  how 
through  all  her  misfortunes  we  watch  her  with 
wonderful  dignity,  delicacy,  courage,  and  devo- 
tion quick  to  see  what  her  trust  demanded  and 
never  failing  to  answer  the  call,  till  her  task 
is  done,  and  we  see  her  on  the  morning  when 


WOMANHOOD  127 

her  son  sets  out  on  the  path  she  had  prepared, 
the  same  quivering  woman,  who  had  sent  her 
husband  with  words  of  comfort  to  his  duty, 
now,  after  all  the  years  of  trial,  sending  her 
son  as  proudly  on  his  path.  It  is  their  first 
parting.  Let  her  own  words  speak:  ^^ Hitherto 
I  had  not  allowed  myself  even  to  feel  that  my 
William  was  my  own  and  my  only  child;  I 
considered  only  that  Toners  son  was  confided 
to  me ;  but  in  that  moment  Nature  resumed  her 
rights.  I  sat  in  a  field :  the  road  was  long  and 
white  before  me  and  no  object  on  it  but  my 
child.  ...  I  could  not  think;  but  all  I  had 
ever  suffered  seemed  before  and  around  me  at 
that  moment,  and  I  wished  so  intensely  to  close 
my  eyes  for  ever,  that  I  wondered  it  did  not 
happen.  The  transitions  of  the  mind  are  very 
extraordinary.  As  I  sat  in  that  state,  unable 
to  think  of  the  necessity  of  returning  home,  a 
little  lark  rushed  up  from  the  grass  beside  me ; 
it  whirled  over  my  head  and  hovered  in  the  air 
singing  such  a  beautiful,  cheering,  and,  as  it 
sounded  to  me,  approving  note,  that  it  roused 
me.  I  felt  in  my  heart  as  if  Tone  had  sent  it 
to  me.  I  returned  to  my  solitary  home.''  It 
is  a  picture  to  move  us,  to  think  of  the  devoted 


128  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

woman  there  in  the  sunshine,  bent  down  in  the 
grass,  utterly  alone,  till  the  lark,  sweeping 
heavenward  in  song,  seems  to  give  a  message 
of  gentle  comfort  from  her  husband's  watch- 
ing spirit.  Our  emotion  now  is  of  no  enervat- 
ing order.  We  are  proud  of  our  land  and  her 
people ;  our  nerves  are  firm  and  set ;  our  hearts 
cry  out  for  action;  we  are  not  weeping,  but 
burning  for  the  Cause.  How  little  we  know  of 
this  heroic  woman.  We  are  in  some  ways 
familiar  with  Tone,  his  high  character,  his 
genial  open  nature,  his  daring,  his  patience,  his 
farsightedness,  his  judgment — in  spirit  tireless 
and  indomitable :  a  man  peerless  among  his  fel- 
lows. But  he  had  yet  one  compeer;  there  was 
one  nature  that  matched  his  to  depth  and  height 
of  its  greatness — that  nature  was  a  woman's, 
and  the  woman  was  Wolfe  Tone's  wife. 

vi 

It  is  well  this  heroic  example  of  our  woman- 
hood should  be  before  not  only  our  womanhood 
but  our  manhood.  It  should  show  us  all  that 
patriotism  does  not  destroy  the  finer  feelings, 
but  rather  calls  them  forth  and  gives  them 
wider  play.    We  have  been  too  used  to  think- 


WOMANHOOD  129 

ing  that  the  qualities  of  love  and  tenderness 
are  no  virtues  for  a  soldier,  that  they  will  sap 
his  resolution  and  destroy  his  work;  but  our 
movements  fail  always  when  they  fail  to  be 
human.  Until  we  mature  and  the  poetry  in 
life  is  wakening,  we  are  ready  to  act  by  a 
theory;  but  when  Nature  asserts  herself  the 
hard  theorist  fails  to  hold  us.  Let  us  remem- 
ber and  be  human.  We  have  been  saying  in 
effect,  if  not  in  so  many  words:  ^*For  Ire- 
land's sake,  don't  fall  in  love'' — ^we  might  as 
well  say:  ^*For  Ireland's  sake,  don't  let  your 
blood  circulate."  It  is  impossible — even  if  it 
were  possible  it  would  be  hateful.  The  man 
and  woman  have  a  great  and  beautiful  destiny 
to  fulfil  together:  to  substitute  for  it  an  un- 
natural way  of  life  that  can  claim  neither  the 
seclusion  of  the  cloister  nor  the  dominion  of  the 
world  is  neither  beautiful  nor  great.  We  have 
cause  for  gratitude  in  the  example  before  us. 
The  woman  can  learn  from  it  how  she  may 
equal  the  bravest  man;  and  the  man  should 
learn  to  let  his  wife  and  children  suffer  rather 
than  make  of  them  willing  slaves  and  cowards. 
For  there  are  some  earnest  men  who  are  ready 
to  suffer  themselves  but  cannot  endure  the  suf- 


130  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

f ering  of  those  they  love,  and  a  mistaken  family 
tenderness  binds  and  drags  them  down.  No 
one,  surely,  can  hold  it  better  to  carefully  put 
away  every  duty  that  may  entail  hardship  on 
wife  and  child,  for  then  the  wife  is  instead  of  a 
comrade  a  burden,  and  the  child  becomes  a  de- 
generate creature,  creeping  between  heaven 
and  earth,  afraid  to  hold  his  head  erect,  and 
unable  to  fulfil  his  duty  to  God  or  man.  Let 
no  man  be  afraid  that  those  he  loves  may  be 
tried  in  the  fire ;  but  let  him  to  the  best  of  his 
strength  show  them  how  to  stand  the  ordeal, 
and  then  trust  to  the  greatness  of  the  Truth 
and  the  virtue  of  a  loyal  nature  to  bring  each 
one  forth  in  triumph,  and  he  and  they  may 
have  in  the  issue  undreamed  of  recompense. 
For  the  battle  that  tries  them  will  discover 
finer  chords  not  yet  touched  in  their  inter- 
course; finer  sympathies,  susceptibilities,  gen- 
tleness and  strength;  a  deeper  insight  into  life 
and  a  wider  outlook  on  the  world,  making  in 
fine  a  wonderful  blend  of  wisdom,  tenderness 
and  courage  that  gives  them  to  realise  that  life, 
with  all  its  faults,  struggles,  and  pain  is  still 
and  for  ever  great  and  beautiful. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  FKONTIER 


OUR  frontier  is  twofold,  the  langnage  and 
the  sea.  For  the  majesty  of  our  encir- 
cling waters  we  have  no  need  to  raise  a  plea,  but 
to  give  God  thanks  for  setting  so  certain  a  seal 
on  our  individual  existence  and  giving  us  in 
the  spreading  horizon  of  the  ocean  some  symbol 
of  our  illimitable  destiny.  For  the  language 
there  is  something  still  to  be  said;  there  are 
some  ideas  gaining  currency  that  should  be 
challenged — the  cold  denial  of  some  that  the  un- 
qualified name  Irish  be  given  to  the  literature 
of  Irishman  that  is  passionate  with  Irish  en- 
thusiasm and  loyalty  to  Ireland,  yet  from  the 
exigencies  of  the  time  had  to  be  written  in  Eng- 
lish; the  view  not  only  assumed  but  asserted 
by  some  of  the  Gael  that  the  Gall  may  be  recog- 
nised only  if  he  take  second  place;  the  aloof- 
ness of  many  of  the  Gall,  not  troubling  to  un- 

131 


132  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

derstand  their  rights  and  duties;  the  ignoring 
on  both  sides  of  the  fine  significance  of  the  name 
Irishman,  of  a  spirit  of  patriotism  and  a  deep- 
lying  basis  of  authority  and  justice  that  will 
give  stability  to  the  state  and  secure  its  future 
against  any  unheaval  that  from  the  unrest  of 
the  time  would  seem  to  threaten  the  world. 

ii 

Consider  first  the  literature  of  Irishmen  in 
English.  From  the  attitude  commonly  taken 
on  the  question  of  literary  values,  it  is  clear 
that  the  primary  significance  of  expression  in 
writing  is  often  lost.  What  is  said,  and  the 
purpose  for  which  it  is  said,  take  precedence 
of  the  medium  through  which  it  is  said.  But 
from  our  national  awakening  to  the  significance 
of  the  medium  so  long  ignored  we  have  grown 
so  excited  that  we  frequently  forget  the  greater 
significance  of  the  thing.  The  utterance  of  the 
man  is  of  first  importance,  and,  where  his  ut- 
terance has  weight,  the  vital  need  is  to  secure 
it  through  some  medium,  the  medium  becoming 
important  when  one  more  than  another  is 
found  to  have  a  wider  and  more  intimate  ap- 
peal; and  then  we  do  well  to  become  insistent 


THE  FRONTIER  133 

for  a  particular  medmm  when  it  is  in  anxiety 
for  full  delivery  of  the  writer's  thought  and  a 
wide  knowledge  of  its  truth.  But  we  are  losing 
sight  of  this  natural  order  of  things.  It  is  well, 
then,  the  unconvinced  Gall  should  hear  why  he 
should  accept  the  Irish  lang-uage;  not  simply 
to  defer  to  the  Gael,  but  to  quicken  the  mind 
and  defend  the  territory  of  what  is  now  the 
common  country  of  the  Gael  and  Gall.  Davis 
caught  up  the  great  significance  of  the  language 
when  he  said :  *^  'Tis  a  surer  barrier,  and  more 
important  frontier,  than  fortress  or  river.'' 
The  language  is  at  once  our  frontier  and  our 
first  fortress,  and  behind  it  all  Irishmen  should 
stand,  not  because  a  particular  branch  of  our 
people  evolved  it,  but  because  it  is  the  common 
heritage  of  all.  One  who  has  a  knowledge  of 
Irish  can  easily  get  evidence  of  its  quickening 
power  on  the  Irish  mind.  Travel  in  an  Irish- 
speaking  district  and  hail  one  of  its  old  people 
in  English,  and  you  get  in  response  a  dull 
^^ Good-day,  Sir."  Salute  him  in  Irish  and  you 
touch  a  secret  spring.  The  dull  eyes  light  up, 
the  face  is  all  animation,  the  body  alert,  and 
for  a  dull  ** good-day,"  you  get  warm  benedic- 
tions, lively  sallies,  and  after  you,  as  you  pass 


134  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

on  your  road,  a  flood  of  rich  and  racy  Irish.' 
comes  pouring  down  the  wind.  That  is  the 
secret  power  of  the  langnage.  It  makes  the 
old  men  proud  of  their  youth  and  gives  to  the 
young  quickened  faculties,  an  awakened  imag- 
ination and  a  world  to  conquer.  This  is  no  ex- 
aggeration. It  is  not  always  obvious,  because 
we  do  not  touch  the  secret  spring  nor  wander 
near  the  magic.  But  the  truth  is  there  to  find 
for  him  who  cares  to  search.  You  discover  be- 
hind the  dullness  of  a  provincial  town  a  bright 
centre  of  interest,  and  when  you  study  the  circle 
you  know  that  here  is  some  wonderful  thing: 
priests,  doctors,  lawyers,  teachers,  tradesmen, 
clerks — all  drawn  together,  young  and  old,  both 
sexes,  all  enthusiasts.  Sometimes  a  priest  is 
teaching  a  smith,  sometimes  the  smith  is  teach- 
ing the  priest :  for  a  moment  at  least  we  have 
unconsciously  levelled  barriers  and  there  is  ju- 
bilation in  the  natural  life  re-bom.  Out  of  that 
quickened  life  and  consciousness  rises  a  vivid 
imagination  with  a  rush  of  thought  and  a 
power  of  expression  that  gives  the  nation  a  new 
literature.  That  is  the  justification  of  the  lan- 
guage. It  awakens  and  draws  to  expression 
minds  that  would  otherwise  be  a  blank.    It  is 


THE  FRONTIER  135 

not  that  the  revelation  of  Davis  is  of  less  value 
than  we  think,  but  that  through  the  medium  of 
Irish  other  revelations  will  be  won  that  would 
otherwise  be  lost.  Again,  in  subtle  ways  we 
cannot  wholly  understand,  it  gives  the  Irish 
mind  a  defence  against  every  other  mind,  tak- 
ing in  comradeship  whatever  good  the  others 
have  to  offer,  while  retaining  its  own  power  and 
place.  The  Irish  mind  can  do  itself  justice 
only  in  Irish.  But  still  some  ardent  and  faith- 
ful spirits  broke  through  every  difficulty  of 
time  and  circumstance  and  found  expression  in 
English,  and  we  have  the  treasures  of  Davis, 
Mitdiel,  and  Mangan;  yet,  the  majority  re- 
mained cold,  and  now,  to  quicken  the  mass,  we 
turn  to  the  old  language.  But  this  is  not  to 
decry  what  was  won  in  other  fields.  In  the 
widening  future  that  beckons  to  us,  we  shall, 
if  anything,  give  greater  praise  to  these  good 
fighters  and  enthusiasts,  who  in  darker  years, 
even  with  the  language  of  the  enemy,  resisted 
his  march  and  held  the  gap  for  Ireland. 

iii 

On  this  ground  the  Gael  and  Gall  stand  on 
footing  of  equality.     That  is  the  point  many 


136  PRINCIPLES  OP  FREEDOM 

on  both  sides  miss  and  we  need  to  emphasise 
it.  Some  Irishmen  not  of  Gaelic  stock  speak 
of  Irish  as  foreign  to  them,  and  would  main- 
tain English  in  the  principal  place  now  and  in 
the  future.  We  do  well  then  to  make  clear  to 
such  a  one  that  he  is  asked  to  adopt  the  lan- 
guage for  Ireland's  sake  as  a  nation  and  for 
his  own  sake  as  a  citizen.  If  he  wishes  to  serve 
her  he  must  stand  for  the  language ;  if  he  pre- 
fers English  civilisation  he  should  go  back  to 
England.  There  only  can  he  develop  on  English 
lines.  An  Irishman  in  Ireland  with  an  English 
mind  is  a  queer  contradiction,  who  can  serve 
neither  Ireland  nor  England  in  any  good  sense, 
and  both  Ireland  and  England  disown  him.  So 
the  Irishman  of  other  than  Gaelic  ancestors 
should  stand  in  with  us,  not  accepting  some- 
thing disagreeable  as  inevitable,  but  claiming  a 
right  by  birth  and  citizenship,  joining  the  fine 
army  of  the  nation  for  a  brave  adventurous 
future,  full  of  ^e  possibility  and  guaranteed 
by  a  fime  comradeship — owning  a  land  not  of 
flattery  and  favouritism  but  of  freedom  and 
manhood.  This  saving  ideal  has  been  often 
obscured  by  our  sundering  class  names.    This 


THE  FRONTIER  137 

is  why  we  would  substitute  as  common  for  all 
the  fine  name  of  Irishman. 

iv 

But  in  asking  all  parties  to  accept  the  com- 
mon name  of  Irishman,  we  find  a  fear  rather 
suggested  than  declared — that  men  may  be 
asked  in  this  name  to  put  by  something  they 
hold  as  a  great  principle  of  Life;  that  Cath- 
olic, Protestant,  and  Dissenter  mil  all  be  asked 
to  find  agreement  in  a  fourth  alternative,  in 
which  they  will  not  submit  to  one  another  but 
will  all  equally  belie  themselves.  There  is  such 
a  hidden  fear,  and  we  should  have  it  out  and 
dispose  of  it.  The  best  men  of  all  parties  will 
have  no  truck  with  this  and  they  are  right. 
But  on  what  ground,  then,  shall  we  find  agree- 
ment, the  recognition  of  which  Irish  Citizenship 
implies?  On  this,  that  the  man  of  whatever 
sincere  principles,  religious  or  civic,  counts 
among  his  great  duties  his  duty  as  citizen ;  and 
he  defends  his  creed  because  he  believes  it  to 
be  a  safe  guide  to  the  fulfilling  of  all  duties, 
this  including.  When,  therefore,  we  ask  him 
to  stand  in  as  Irish  Citizen,  it  is  not  that  he  is 


138  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

to  abandon  in  one  iota  his  sincere  principles, 
but  that  he  is  to  give  us  proof  of  his  sincerity. 
He  tells  us  his  creed  requires  him  to  be  a  good 
citizen:  we  give  him  a  fine  field  in  which  he 
can  be  to  us  a  fine  example. 


In  further  consideration  of  this  we  should 
put  by  the  thought  of  finding  a  mere  working 
agreement.  There  is  a  deep-lying  basis  of  au- 
thority and  justice  to  seek,  which  it  should  be 
our  highest  aim  to  discover.  Modern  govern- 
ments concede  justice  to  those  who  can  compel 
justice — even  the  democracy  requires  that  you 
be  strong  enough  to  formulate  a  claim  and  sus- 
tain it ;  but  this  is  the  way  of  tyranny.  A  per- 
fect government  should  seek,  while  careful  to 
develop  its  stronger  forces  and  keep  them  in 
perfect  balance,  to  consider  also  the  claims  of 
those  less  powerful  but  not  less  true.  A  gov- 
ernment that  over-rides  the  weak  because  it  is 
safe,  is  a  tyranny,  and  tyranny  is  in  seed  in 
the  democratic  governments  of  our  time.  We 
must  consider  this  well,  for  it  is  pressing  and 
grave ;  and  we  must  get  men  to  come  together 
as  citizens  to  defend  the  rights  as  well  of  the 


THE  FRONTIER  139 

unit  which  is  unsupported  as  of  llie  party  that 
commands  great  power.  So  shall  we  give  stead- 
iness and  fervour  to  our  growing  strength  by 
balancing  it  with  truth  and  justice:  so  shall 
we  found  a  government  that  excesses  cannot 
undermine  nor  tyranny  destroy. 

vi 

We  have  to  consider,  in  conclusion,  the  unrest 
in  the  world,  the  war  of  parties  and  classes, 
and  the  need  of  judging  the  tendencies  of  the 
time  to  set  our  steps  aright.  With  the  wars 
and  rumours  of  wars  that  threaten  the  great 
nations  from  without  and  the  wild  upheavals 
that  threaten  them  within,  it  would  be  foolish 
to  hide  from  ourselves  the  drift  of  events.  We 
must  decide  our  attitude ;  and  if  it  is  too  much 
to  hope  that  we  may  keep  clear  of  the  up- 
heavals, we  should  aim  at  strengthening  our- 
selves against  the  coming  crash.  We  cannot  set 
the  world  right,  but  we  can  go  a  long  way  to 
setting  things  in  our  own  land  right,  by  mak- 
ing through  a  common  patriotism  a  united 
people.  What  if  we  are  held  up  occasionally 
by  the  cold  cries  shot  at  every  high  aim — 
** dreamer — ^Utopia;''  cry  this  in  return:  no 


140  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

vision  of  the  dreamer  can  be  more  wild  than 
the  frantic  make-shifts  of  the  Great  Powers  to 
vie  in  armaments  with  one  another  or  repress 
internal  revolts.  Consider  England  in  the  late 
strike  that  paralysed  her.  It  was  only  sus- 
pended by  a  step  that  merely  deferred  the 
struggle;  the  strife  is  again  threatening.  All 
the  powers  are  so  threatened  and  their  efforts 
to  defer  the  hour  are  equally  feverish  and 
fruitless ;  for  the  hour  is  pressing  and  may  flash 
on  the  world  when  'tis  least  prepared.  Let 
who  will  deride  us,  but  let  us  prepare.  We 
may  not  guide  our  steps  with  the  certainty  of 
prophets,  nor  hope  by  our  beautiful  schemes  to 
make  a  perfect  state ;  but  we  can  only  come  near 
to  perfection  in  the  light  of  a  perfect  ideal, 
and  however  far  below  it  we  may  remain,  we 
can  at  least  under  its  inspiration  reach  an  ex- 
istence rational  and  human:  our  justification 
for  a  brave  effort  lies  in  that  the  governments 
of  this  time  are  neither  one  nor  the  other.  He 
who  thinks  Ireland's  struggle  to  express  her 
own  mind,  to  give  utterance  to  her  own  tongue, 
to  stand  behind  her  own  frontier,  is  but  a  sen- 
timent will  be  surprised  to  find  it  leads  him  to 
this  point.    Herein  is  the  justification  and  the 


THE  FRONTIER  141 

strength  of  the  movement.  Men  are  deriding 
things  around  them,  of  the  significance  of  which 
they  have  not  the  remotest  idea.  Ireland  is 
calling  her  children  to  a  common  banner,  to 
the  defence  of  her  frontier,  to  the  building  up 
of  a  national  life,  harmonious  and  beautiful — a 
conception  of  citizenship,  from  which  a  right 
is  conceded,  not  because  it  can  be  compelled, 
but  because  it  is  just:  to  the  foundation  of  a 
state  that  will  by  its  defence  of  the  least  pow- 
erful prove  all  powerful,  that  will  be  strong 
because  true,  beautiful  because  free,  full  of  the 
music  of  her  olden  speech  and  caught  by  the 
magic  of  her  encircling  sea. 


CHAPTER  X 

LITERATURE    AND    FREEDOM THE    PROPAGANDIST 

PLAYWRIGHT 


A  NATION  ^S  literature  is  an  index  to  its 
mind.  If  the  nation  has  its  freedom  to 
win,  from  its  literature  may  we  learn  if  it  is 
passionately  in  earnest  in  the  fight,  or  if  it  is 
half-hearted,  or  if  it  cares  not  at  all.  What- 
ever state  prevails,  passionate  men  can  pour 
their  passion  through  literature  to  the  nation's 
soul  and  make  it  bum  and  move  and  fight.  For 
this  reason  it  is  of  transcendent  importance  to 
the  Cause.  Literature  is  the  Shrine  of  Free- 
dom, its  fortress,  its  banner,  its  charter.  In 
its  great  temple  patriots  worship ;  from  it  sol- 
diers go  forth,  wave  its  challenge,  and  fight, 
and  conquering,  write  the  charter  of  their  coun- 
try. Its  great  power  is  contested  by  none; 
rather,  all  recognise  it,  and  many  and  violent 
are  the  disputes  as  to  its  right  use  and  purpose. 

142 


LITERATURE  AND  FREEDOM  143 

I  propose  to  consider  two  of  the  disputants, — 
the  propagandist  playwright  and  the  art-for- 
art's-sake  artist,  since  they  raise  issues  that 
are  our  concern.  It  is  curious  that  two  so  vio- 
lently opposed  should  be  so  nearly  alike  in  er- 
ror: they  are  both  afraid  of  life.  The  propa- 
gandist is  all  for  one  side ;  the  artist  afraid  of 
every  side.  The  one  lacks  imagination;  the 
other  lacks  heart;  they  are  both  wide  of  the 
truth.  The  service  of  the  truth  requires  them 
to  pursue  one  course;  in  their  dispute  they 
swerve  from  that  course,  one  to  right,  one  to 
left.  Because  they  leave  the  path  on  opposite 
sides,  they  do  not  see  how  much  alike  is  their 
error;  but  that  they  do  both  leave  the  path  is 
my  point,  and  it  is  well  we  should  consider  it. 
It  would  be  dijBficalt  to  deal  with  both  sides  at 
once ;  so  I  will  consider  the  propagandist  first. 
What  I  have  to  charge  against  him  is  that  his 
work  is  insincere,  that  he  is  afraid  to  do  justice 
to  the  other  side,  that  he  makes  ridicule  of  our 
exemplars,  that  he  helps  to  keep  the  poseur 
in  being;  and  to  conclude,  that  only  by  a  saving 
sense  of  humour  can  we  find  our  way  back  to 
the  truth. 


144  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

ii 

When  we  judge  literature  we  do  so  by  refer- 
ence to  the  eternal  truth,  not  by  what  the  writer 
considers  the  present  phase  of  truth;  and  if 
literature  so  tested  is  found  guilty  of  suppres- 
sion, evasion  or  misinterpretation,  we  call  the 
work  insincere,  though  the  author  may  have 
written  in  perfect  good  faith.    That  is  a  neces- 
sary distinction  to  keep  in  mind.    If  you  call  a 
man's  work  insincere,  the  superficial  critic  will 
take  it  as  calling  the  man  himself  insincere; 
but  the  two  are  distinct,  and  it  needs  to  be  em- 
phasised,  for  sincere  men  are  making  these 
propagandist  plays,  of  which  the  manifest  and 
glaring  untruth  is  working  mischief  to  the  na- 
tional mind.    A  type  of  such  a  play  is  familiar 
enough  in  these  days  when  we  like  to  ridicule 
the  West  Briton.    We  are  served  up  puppets 
representing  the  shoneen  with  a  lisp  set  over 
against  the  patriot  who  says  all  the  proper 
things  suitable  to  the  occasion.     Now,  such  a 
play  serves  no  good  purpose,  but  it  has  a  cer- 
tain bad  effect.    It  does  not  give  a  true  inter- 
pretation of  life;  it  enlightens  no  one;  but  it 
flatters  the  prejudices  of  people  who  profess 


LITERATURE  AND*  FREEDOM  145 

things  for  which  they  have  no  zeal.  That  is 
the  root  of  the  mischief.  Many  of  us  will  read- 
ily profess  a  principle  for  which  we  will  not 
as  readily  suffer,  but  when  the  pinch  comes  and 
we  are  asked  to  do  service  for  the  flag,  we  cover 
our  unwillingness  by  calling  the  man  on  the 
other  side  names.  Where  such  a  spirit  pre- 
vails there  can  be  no  national  awakening.  If 
we  put  a  play  before  the  people,  it  must  be  with 
a  hope  of  arresting  attention,  striking  their 
imagination,  giving  them  a  grip  of  reality,  and 
filling  them  with  a  joy  in  life.  Now,  the  propa- 
gandist play  does  none  of  these  things ;  it  has 
neither  joy  nor  reality;  its  characters  are  pup- 
pets and  ridiculous;  they  are  essentially  cari- 
catures. This  is  supposed  to  convert  the  un- 
believer; but  the  intelligent  unbeliever  coming 
to  it  is  either  bored  or  irritated  by  its  extrava- 
gant absurdity,  and  if  he  admits  our  sincerity, 
it  is  only  at  the  expense  of  our  intelligence. 

iii 

A  propagandist  play  for  a  political  end  is 
even  more  mischievous — at  least  lovers  of  free- 
dom have  more  cause  for  protest.  It  makes  our 
heroes  ridiculous.    No  man  of  imagination  can 


146  PRINCIPLES  OP  FREEDOM 

stand  these  impossible  persons  of  the  play  who 
*^walk  on"  eternally  talking  of  Ireland.  Our 
heroes  were  men;  these  are  poseurs.  Get  to 
understand  Davis,  Tone,  or  any  of  our  great 
ones,  and  you  find  them  human,  gay,  and  lov^ 
able.  ^^Were  you  ever  in  love,  Davis  T'  asked 
one  of  his  wondering  admirers,  and  prompt  and 
natural  came  the  reply :  ^  *  I  'm  never  out  of  it. ' ' 
We  swear  by  Tone  for  his  manly  virtues;  we 
love  him  because  we  say  to  ourselves:  **What 
a  fine  fellow  for  a  holiday.''  A  friend  of  Mit- 
chel  's  traveling  with  him  once  through  a  storm, 
was  astonished  to  find  him  suddenly  burst  out 
into  a  fine  recitation,  which  he  delivered  with 
fine  effect.  He  was  joyous  in  spirit.  For  their 
buoyancy  we  love  them  all,  and  because  of  it 
we  emulate  them.  We  are  influenced,  not  by  the 
man  who  always  wants  to  preach  a  sermon  at  us, 
but  by  the  one  with  whom  we  go  for  a  holiday. 
Our  history-makers  were  great,  joyous  men, 
of  fine  spirit,  fine  imagination,  fine  sensibility, 
and  fine  humour.  They  loved  life;  they  loved 
their  fellow-man;  they  loved  all  the  beautiful, 
brave  things  of  earth.  When  you  know  them 
you  can  picture  them  scaling  high  mountains 
and  singing  from  the  summits,  or  boating  on 


LITERATURE  AND  FREEDOM  147 

fine  rivers  in  the  sunlight,  or  walking  about  in 
the  dawn,  to  the  music  of  Creation,  evolving  the 
philosophy  of  revolutions  and  building  beau- 
tiful worlds.  You  get  no  hint  of  this  from  the 
absurd  propagandist  play,  yet  this  is  what  the 
heart  of  man  craves.  When  he  does  not  get  it, 
he  cannot  explain  what  he  wants ;  but  he  knows 
what  he  does  not  want,  and  he  goes  away  and 
keeps  his  distance.  The  play  has  missed  fire, 
and  the  playwright  and  his  hero  are  ridiculous. 
Let  us  understand  one  thing:  if  we  want  to 
make  men  dutiful  we  must  make  them  joyous. 

iv 

It  is  because  we  must  talk  of  grave  things 
that  we  must  preserve  our  gaiety^  otherwise 
we  could  not  preserve  our  balance.  By  some 
freak  of  nature,  the  average  man  strikes  atti- 
tudes as  readily  as  the  average  boy  whistles. 
We  know  how  the  poseur  works  mischief  to 
every  cause,  and  we  can  see  the  poseur  on  every 
side.  In  politics,  he  has  made  the  platform 
contemptible,  which  is  a  danger  to  the  nation, 
needing  the  right  use  of  platform;  in  litera- 
ture— ^well,  we  aU  know  bourgeois,  but  who  has 
done  justice  to  the  artist  who  gets  on  a  plat- 


148  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

form  to  talk  about  the  bourgeois  1 — in  religion, 
the  poseur  is  more  likely  to  make  agnostics  than 
all  the  Eationalist  Press;  and  the  agnostic 
poseur  in  turn  is  very  funny.  Now  all  these 
are  an  affliction,  a  collection  of  absurdities  of 
which  we  must  cure  the  nation.  If  we  cannot 
cure  the  nation  of  absurdity  we  cannot  set  her 
free.  Let  it  be  our  rule  to  combine  gaiety  with 
gravity  and  we  will  acquire  a  saving  sense  of 
proportion.  Only  the  solemn  man  is  dull;  the 
serious  man  has  a  natural  fund  of  gaiety:  we 
need  only  be  natural  to  bring  back  joy  to  seri- 
ous endeavour.  Then  we  shall  begin  to  move. 
Let  us  remember  a  revolution  will  surely  fail 
when  its  leaders  have  no  sense  of  humour. 


But  our  humour  will  not  be  a  saving  humour 
unless  it  is  of  high  order.  A  great  humourist 
is  as  rare  as  a  great  poet  or  a  great  philoso- 
pher. Though  ours  may  not  be  great  we  must 
keep  it  in  the  line  of  greatness.  Eemember 
great  humour  must  be  made  out  of  ourselves 
rather  than  out  of  others.  The  fine  humourist 
is  delightfully  courteous ;  the  commonplace  wit, 
invariably  insulting.    We  must  keep  two  things 


LITERATURE  AND  FREEDOM  U9 

in  mind,  that  in  laughter  at  our  own  folly  is 
the  beginning  of  wisdom;  and  the  keenest  wit 
is  pure  fun,  never  coarse  fun.  We  start  a  laugh 
at  others  by  getting  an  infallible  laugh  at  our- 
selves. The  commonplace  wit  arranges  inci- 
dents to  make  someone  he  dislikes  ridiculous; 
his  attitude  is  the  attitude  of  the  superior  per- 
son. He  is  nearly  always — often  unintention- 
ally— offensive ;  he  repels  the  public  sometimes 
in  irritation,  sometimes  in  amusement,  for  they 
often  see  point  in  his  joke,  but  see  a  greater 
joke  in  him,  and  they  are  often  laughing,  not 
at  his  joke,  but  at  himself.  Let  us  for  our  sal- 
vation avoid  the  attituae  of  the  superior  per- 
son. Don't  make  sport  of  others — ^make  it  of 
yourself.  Eidicule  of  your  neighbour  must  be 
largely  speculation;  of  the  comedy  in  yourself 
there  can  be  no  doubt.  When  you  get  the  es- 
sential humour  out  of  yourself,  you  get  the  in- 
fallible touch,  and  you  arrest  and  attract  every- 
one. You  are  not  the  superior  person.  In  ef- 
fect, you  slap  your  neighbour  on  the  back  and 
say,  ^^We're  all  in  the  same  boat;  let  us  enjoy 
the  joke'';  and  you  find  he  will  come  to  you 
with  glistening  eye.  He  may  feel  a  little  fool- 
ish at  first — ^you  are  poking  his  ribs;  but  you 


150  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

cannot  help  it — having  given  him  the  way  to 
poke  your  own.  By  your  merry  honesty  he 
knows  you  for  a  safe  comrade,  and  he  comes 
with  relief  and  confidence — we  like  to  talk  about 
ourselves.  He  will  be  equally  frank  with  your- 
self;  you  mil  tell  one  another  secrets;  you  will 
reach  the  heart  of  man.  That  is  what  we  need. 
We  must  get  the  heart-beat  into  literature. 
Then  \vill  it  quiver  and  dance  and  weep  and 
sing.    Then  we  are  in  the  line  of  greatness. 

vi 

It  is  because  we  need  the  truth  that  we  object 
to  the  propagandist  playwright.  Only  in  a  rare 
case  does  he  avoid  being  partial ;  and  when  he 
is  impartial  he  is  cold  and  unconvincing.  He 
gives  us  argument  instead  of  emotion;  but  emo- 
tion is  the  language  of  the  heart.  He  does  not 
touch  the  heart;  he  tries  to  touch  the  mind:  he 
is  a  pamphleteer  and  out  of  place.  He  fails, 
and  his  failure  has  damaged  his  cause,  for  it 
leaves  us  to  feel  that  the  cause  is  as  cold  as 
his  play;  but  when  the  Cause  is  a  great  one  it 
is  always  vital,  warm  and  passionate.  It  is 
for  the  sake  of  the  Cause  we  ask  that  a  play 
be  made  by  a  sincere  man-of -letters,  who  will 


LITERATURE  AND  FREEDOM  151 

give  us  not  propagandist  literature  nor  art-for- 
art's-sake,  but  the  throbbing  heart  of  man.  The 
great  dramatist  will  have  the  great  qualities 
needed,  sensibility,  sympathy,  insight,  imagina- 
tion, and  courage.  The  special  pleader  and  the 
poseur  lack  all  these  things,  and  they  make 
themselves  and  their  work  foolish.  Let  us 
stand  for  the  truth,  not  pruning  it  for  the  occa- 
sion. The  man  who  is  afraid  to  face  life  is 
not  competent  to  lead  anyone,  to  speak  for  any- 
one, or  to  interpret  anything:  he  inspires  no 
confidence.  The  one  to  rouse  us  must  be  pas- 
sionate, and  his  passion  will  win  us  heart  and 
soul.  "When  from  some  terribly  intense  mo- 
ment, he  turns  with  a  merry  laugh,  only  the 
fool  will  take  him  as  laughing  at  his  cause; 
the  general  instinct  will  see  him  detecting  an 
attitude,  tripping  it  up,  and  making  us  all 
merry  and  natural  again.  In  that  moment  we 
shall  spring  up  astonished,  enthusiastic,  exult- 
ant,— here  is  one  inspired;  we  shall  enter  a 
passionate  brotherhood,  no  cold  disputes  now, 
— the  smouldering  fire  along  the  land  shall 
quicken  to  a  blaze,  history  shall  be  again  in  the 
making.    We  shall  be  caught  in  the  living  flame. 


CHAPTER  XI 

LITEEATUKE  AND  FREEDOM ^ART  FOE  AET's  SAKE 


ART  for  art's  sake  has  come  to  have  a 
meaning  which  mnst  be  challenged,  but 
yet  it  can  be  nsed  in  a  sense  that  is  both  high 
and  sacred.  If  a  gifted  writer  take  literature 
as  a  great  vocation  and  determine  to  use  his 
talents  faithfully  and  well,  without  reference 
to  fee  or  reward;  if  prosperity  cannot  seduce 
him  to  the  misuse  of  his  genius,  then  we  give 
him  our  high  praise.  Let  it  still  not  be  forgot- 
ten that  the  labourer  is  worthy  of  his  hire.  But 
if  the  hire  is  not  forthcoming,  and  he  knowing 
it,  yet  says  in  his  heart,  **The  work  must  still 
be  done";  and  if  he  does  it  loyally  and  bravely, 
despite  the  present  coldness  of  the  world,  doing 
the  good  work  for  the  love  of  the  work  and  all 
beautiful  things;  and  if  with  this  meaning  he 
take  *^art  for  art's  sake"  as  his  battle-cry,  then 

152 


ART  FOR  ART'S  SAKE  153 

we  repeat  it  is  used  in  a  sense  both  high  and 
sacred. 

ii 

But  there  are  artists  abroad  whose  chief 
glory  seems  to  be  to  deny  that  they  have  con- 
victions— that  is,  convictions  about  the  passion- 
ate things  of  Hfe  that  rouse  and  move  their  gen- 
eration. Now  that  they  should  not  be  special 
pleaders  is  an  obvious  duty,  but  unless  they 
have  a  passionate  feeling  for  the  vital  things 
that  move  men,  heart  and  soul,  they  cannot  in- 
terpret the  heart  and  soul  of  passionate  men, 
and  their  work  must  be  for  ever  cold.  When 
literature  is  not  passionate  it  does  not  touch 
the  spirit  to  lift  and  spread  its  wings  and  soar 
to  finer  air.  That  is  the  great  want  about  all 
the  clever  books  now  being  turned  out — they 
often  give  us  excitement;  they  never  give  us 
ecstasy.  Then  there  is  an  obvious  feeling  of 
something  lacking  which  men  try  to  make  up 
with  art;  and  they  produce  work  faultless  in 
form  and  fastidious  in  phrase,  but  still  it  lacks 
the  touch  of  fire  that  would  lift  it  from  com- 
mon things  to  greatness. 


154  PRINCIPLES  OP  FREEDOM 

iii 

If  we  are  to  apply  art  to  great  work  we  must 
distinguish  art  from  artifice.  We  find  the  two 
well  contrasted  in  Synge's  ** Riders  to  the  Sea" 
and  his  ** Playboy."  The  first  was  written 
straight  from  the  heart.  We  feel  Synge  must 
have  followed  those  people  carrjdng  the  dead 
bodyj  and  touched  to  the  quick  by  the  caoine, 
passed  the  touch  on  to  us,  for  in  the  lyric  swell 
of  the  close  we  get  the  true  emotion.  Here 
alone  is  he  in  the  line  of  greatness.  This 
gripped  his  heart  and  he  wrote  out  of  himself. 
But  in  the  other  work  of  his  it  was  otherwise. 
He  has  put  his  method  on  record:  he  listened 
through  a  chink  in  the  floor,  and  wrote  around 
other  people.  It  is  characteristic  of  the  art  of 
our  time.  Let  it  be  called  art  if  the  critics  will, 
but  it  is  not  life. 

iv 

No,  it  is  not  life.  But  there  is  so  much  talk 
just  now  of  getting  *^down  to  fundamentals," 
of  the  poetry  of  the  tramp  ^^  walking  the 
world, ' '  and  the  rest  of  it,  that  it  would  be  well 
if  we  did  qet  down  to  fundamentals;  and  this 


ART  FOR  ART'S  SAKE  155 

is  one  thing  fundamental — the  tramp  is  a  de- 
serter from  life.  He  evades  the  troubled  field 
where  great  causes  are  fought;  he  shuns  the 
battle  because  of  the  wounds  and  the  sacrifice  j 
he  has  no  heart  for  high  conflict  and  victory. 
Let  him  under  the  cover  of  darkness  but  secure 
his  share  of  the  spoils  and  the  world  may  go 
to  wreck.  Yes,  he  is  the  meanest  of  things— a 
deserter.  On  the  field  of  battle  he  would  be 
shot.  If  we  let  him  desert  the  field  of  life,  go 
his  way  and  walk  the  world,  let  us  not  at  least 
hail  him  as  a  hero. 

V 

The  Eepertory  Theatre  is  the  nursery  of  this 
particular  art-cult,  and  'twould  relieve  some  of 
us  to  talk  freely  about  it.  The  Eepertory  Thea- 
tre has  already  become  fashionable,  and  is  quite 
rapidly  becoming  a  nuisance.  Men  are  making 
songs  and  plays  and  lectures  for  art's  sake,  for 
the  praise  of  a  coterie  or  to  shock  the  bourgeois 
—above  all  shock  the  bourgeois.  A  certain 
type  of  artist  delights  in  shocking  the  bourgeois 
— a  riot  over  a  play  gives  him  great  satisfac- 
tion. In  passing,  one  must  note  with  exaspera- 
tion, perhaps  with  some  misgiving,  how  men 


156  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

raise  a  riot  over  sometliing  not  worth,  a  thought, 
and  will  not  fight  for  things  for  which  they 
ought  to  die.  But  he  likes  the  bourgeois  to 
think  him  a  terrible  person ;  in  his  own  esteem 
he  is  on  an  eminence,  and  he  proceeds  to  send 
out  more  shock- the-bourgeois  literature;  and 
'tis  mostly  very  sorry  stuff.  Sometimes  he 
tries  to  be  emotional  and  is  but  painfully  arti- 
ficial ;  sometimes  he  tries  to  be  merry  and  gives 
us  flippancy  for  fun.  And  we  feel  a  terrible 
need  for  getting  back  to  a  standard,  worthy 
and  true.  Great  work  can  be  made  only  for 
the  love  of  work;  not  for  money,  not  for  art's 
sake,  not  for  intellectual  appeal  nor  flippant 
ridicule,  but  for  the  pure  love  of  things,  good, 
true  and  beautiful.  "With  the  best  of  intentions 
we  may  fail ;  and  this  should  be  laid  down  as  a 
safe  guiding  principle;  a  dramatist  should  be 
moved  by  his  o^vn  tragedy;  the  novelist  should 
be  interested  in  his  own  story;  the  poet  should 
make  his  song  for  the  love  of  the  song  and  his 
comedy  for  the  fun  of  the  thing. 

vi 

We  naturally  think  of  the  Abbey  Theatre 
when  we  speak  of  these  things,  and  as  the  Ab- 


ART  FOR  ART'S  SAKE  157 

bey  work  has  certainly  suffered  from  over- 
praise we  may  correct  it  by  comparison  with 
Shakespeare.  Before  the  Abbey  we  were  so 
used  to  triviality  that  when  clever  and  artistic 
work  appeared  we  at  once  hailed  it  ^eat.  We 
did  get  one  or  two  great  things,  a  fact  to  note 
VsAih.  hearty  pleasure  and  pride.  But  the  rest 
was  merely  clever ;  and  now  that  we  are  getting 
nothing  great  we  must  insist,  and  keep  on  in- 
sisting, that  'tis  merely  clever.  But  let  us  re- 
member that  value  of  the  word  great.  Let  it  be 
kept  for  such  names  as  Shakespeare  and 
Moliere ;  and  lesser  men  may  be  called  brilliant, 
talented,  or  able — anything  you  will  but  great. 
Consider  the  scenes  from  the  supreme  plays  of 
Shakespeare  and  compare  with  them  the  in- 
numerable plays  now  coming  forth  and  note  a 
vital  difference.  These  give  us  excitement, 
where  Shakespeare  gave  us  vision.  We  may  be 
reminded  of  Shakespeare's  duels  and  brawls 
and  battles  and  blood;  his  generation  revelled 
in  excitement.  Yes,  they  craved  it,  and  he  gave 
it  to  them,  but  shot  through  with  wonder,  sub- 
tlety, esctasy;  and  his  splendid  creations,  like 
mighty  worlds,  keep  us  wondering  for  ever. 
We  must  get  back  that  supreme  note  of  blended 


158  PRINCIPLES  OP  FEEEDOM 

music  and  wonder,  that  makes  the  spirit  beau- 
tiful and  tempts  it  to  soar,  till  it  rise  over  com- 
mon things  and  mere  commotion,  spreading  its 
wings  for  the  finer  air  where  reason  faints  and 
falls  to  earth. 

vii 

A  dramatist  cannot  make  a  great  play  out 
of  little  people.  His  chief  characters  at  least 
must  be  great  of  heart  and  soul — the  great 
hearts  that  fight  great  causes.  When  such  are 
caught  in  the  inevitable  struggle  of  affections 
and  duties  and  the  general  clash  of  life  their 
passionate  spirits  send  up  all  the  elements  that 
make  great  literature.  The  writers  who  cannot 
enter  into  their  battles  and  espouse  their  cause 
cannot  give  utterance  to  their  hearts;  and  we 
don 't  want  what  he  thinks  about  them ;  we  want 
what  they  think  about  themselves.  He  who  is 
in  passionate  sympathy  with  them  feels  their 
emotion  and  writing  from  the  heart  does  great 
things.  The  artist  who  is  in  mortal  dread  of 
being  thought  a  politician  or  suspected  of  mo- 
tives cannot  feel,  and  will  as  surely  fail,  as  the 
one  who  sits  down  to  play  the  role  of  politician 
disguised  as  playright.    That  is  what  the  artist 


ART  FOR  ART'S  SAKE  159 

has  got  to  see ;  and  lie  has  got  to  see  that  while 
the  Irish  Eevolution  for  centuries  has  attracted 
the  greatest  hearts  and  brains  of  Ireland,  for 
him  carefully  to  avoid  it  is  to  avoid  the  line  of 
greatness.  For  a  propagandist  to  sit  down  to 
give  it  utterance  would  be  as  if  a  handy-man 
were  to  set  out  to  build  a  cathedral.  The  Eev- 
olution does  not  need  to  be  argued;  it  justifies 
itself — all  we  need  is  to  give  it  utterance — give 
it  utterance  once  greatly.  Then  the  writer  may 
proceed  to  give  utterance  to  every  good  thing 
under  the  sun.  But  our  artists  are  making,  and 
will  continue  to  make,  only  second-class  litera- 
ture, for  they  are  afraid  of  the  Eevolution,  and 
it  is  all  over  our  best  of  life ;  they  are  afraid  of 
that  life.  But  to  enter  the  arena  of  greatness 
they  must  give  it  a  voice.  That  is  the  vocation 
of  the  poet. 

viii 

Yes,  and  the  poet  will  be  unlike  you,  gentle- 
men of  the  fastidious  phrase.  He  will  not  be 
careless  of  form,  but  the  passion  that  is  in 
him  will  make  simple  words  bum  and  live; 
never  will  he  in  mode  of  the  time  go  wide 
of  the  truth  to  make  a  picturesque  phrase ;  his 


160  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

mind  rapt  on  the  thing  will  fix  on  the  true  word ; 
his  heart  warm  with  the  battle  will  fashion  more 
beautiful  forms  than  you,  0,  detached  and 
dainty  artist ;  his  soul  full  of  music  and  adven- 
ture will  scale  those  heights  it  is  your  fate  to 
dream  of  but  not  your  fortune  to  possess.  Yet, 
you  too  might  possess  them  would  you  but  step 
with  him  into  the  press  of  adventurous  legions, 
and  make  articulate  the  dream  of  men,  and 
make  splendid  their  triumph.  He  is  the 
prophet  of  to-morrow,  though  you  deny  him  to- 
day. He  is  not  like  to  you,  supercilious  and 
aloof — ^he  would  have  you  for  a  passionate 
brother,  would  raise  your  spirit  in  ecstasy, 
flood  your  mind  with  thought,  and  touch  your 
lips  with  fire.  Because  of  his  sensitiveness 
he  knows  every  mood  and  every  heart  and  gives 
a  voice  and  a  song  to  all.  You  might  know 
him  for  a  good  comrade,  where  freedom  is  to 
win  or  to  hold,  over  in  the  van  or  the  breach; 
able  to  deal  good  blows  and  take  them  in  the 
fine  manner,  a  fine  fighter;  not  with  darkened 
brow  crying,  *^an  eye  for  an  eye'^ — ^for  who 
coidd  give  him  blow  for  blow  or  match  his  deed 
with  a  deed! — ^but  one  of  open  front  and  open 
hand,  who  will  count  it  happiness  to  have  made 


ART  FOR  ART'S  SAKE  161 

for  a  victory  he  may  not  live  to  enjoy,  as  ready 
to  die  in  its  splendour  as  lie  had  been  to  live 
through  the  darkness  before  the  dawn;  remem- 
bering with  soldier  tenderness  the  comrades  of 
old  battles,  forgetting  the  malice  of  old  ene- 
mies; a  high  example  of  the  magnanimous 
spirit,  happily  not  yet  unknown  on  earth ;  with 
fine  generosity  and  noble  fire,  full  of  that  great 
love  the  common  cry  can  never  make  other  than 
humanising  and  beautiful,  not  without  a  gleam 
of  humour  more  than  half  divine,  he  will  pass, 
leaving  to  the  foe  that  hated  him  heartily 
equally  with  the  friend  that  loved  him  well,  the 
wonder  of  his  thought  and  the  rapture  of  his 
melody. 


CHAPTEE  XII 

RELIGION 
1 

IT  ought  to  be  laid  down  as  a  first  principle 
that  grave  questions  which  have  divided  ns 
in  the  past,  and  divide  ns  still  with  mnch  bitter- 
ness, should  not  be  thrust  aside  and  kept  out 
of  view  in  the  hope  of  harmony.  Where  the 
attitude  is  such,  the  hope  is  vain.  They  should 
be  approached  with  courage  in  the  hope  of  cre- 
ating mutual  respect  and  an  honourable  solu- 
tion for  all.  Eeligion  is  such  a  question.  To 
the  majority  of  men  this  touches  their  most  in- 
timate life.  Because  of  their  jealous  regard 
for  that  intimate  part  of  themselves  they  are 
prepared  for  bitter  hostilities  with  anyone  who 
will  assail  it;  and  because  of  the  unmeasured 
bitterness  of  assaults  on  all  sides  we  have  come 
to  count  it  a  virtue  to  bring  together  in  societies 
labelled  non-sectarian,  men  who  have  been  vio- 
lently opposed  on  this  issue.    It  will  be  readily 

162 


RELIGION  163 

allowed  that  to  bring  men  together  anyhow, 
even  suspiciously,  is  somewhat  of  an  advance, 
when  we  keep  in  mind  how  angrily  they  have 
quarrelled.  But  'tis  not  to  our  credit  that  in 
any  assembly  a  particular  name  hardly  dare 
be  mentioned;  and  it  must  be  realised  that, 
whatever  purpose  it  may  serve  in  lesser  under- 
takings, in  the  great  fight  for  freedom  no  such 
attitude  will  suffice.  No  grave  question  can 
be  settled  by  ignoring  it.  Since  it  is  our  duty 
to  make  the  War  of  Independence  a  reality  and 
a  success,  we  must  invoke  a  contest  that  will  as 
surely  rouse  every  latent  passion  and  give 
every  latent  suspicion  an  occasion  and  a  field. 
That  is  the  danger  ahead.  We  must  anticipate 
that  danger,  meet  and  destroy  it.  Perhaps  at 
this  suggestion  most  of  us  will  at  once  get  rest- 
ive. Some  may  say  with  irritation :  Why  raise 
this  matter?  Others  on  the  other  side  may  pre- 
pare forthwith  to  dig  up  the  hatchet.  Is  not 
the  attitude  on  both  sides  evidence  of  the  dan- 
ger? Does  anyone  suppose  we  can  start  a  fight 
for  freedom  without  making  that  danger  a 
grimmer  reality?  Who  can  claim  it  a  wise 
policy  merely  for  the  moment  to  dodge  it?  For 
that  is  what  we  do.    Let  us  have  courage  and 


164  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

face  it.  At  what  I  have  to  say  let  no  man  take 
offence  or  fright — ^it  commits  no  one  to  any- 
thing. It  is  written  to  try  and  make  opponents 
understand  and  respect  one  another,  not  to  set 
them  at  one  another,  least  of  all  to  make  them 
^^ liberal/'  that  is,  lax  and  contemptible,  ready 
to  explain  everything  away.  We  want  primarily 
the  man  who  is  prepared  to  fight  his  ground, 
but  who  is  big  enough  in  heart  and  mind  to 
respect  opponents  who  will  also  fight  theirs. 
In  the  integrity  and  courage  of  both  sides  is 
the  guarantee  of  the  independence  of  both. 
That  should  be  our  guiding  thought.  But  as 
on  this  question  most  people  abandon  all  tol- 
erance, it  is  quite  possible  what  may  be  written 
will  satisfy  none;  still,  it  may  serve  the  pur- 
pose of  making  a  need  apparent.  To  repeat, 
we  must  face  the  question.  But  whoever  elects 
to  start  it,  should  approach  the  issue  with  sym- 
pathy and  forbearance.  These  are  as  neces- 
sary as  courage  and  resolution ;  yet,  since  many 
often  sacrifice  firmness  to  sympathy,  others  will 
take  the  opposite  line  of  riding  roughshod  over 
everyone,  a  harshness  that  confirms  the  weak- 
ling in  his  weakness.  To  note  all  this  is  but 
to  note  the  difficulty;  and  if  what  is  now  writ- 


RELIGION  165 

ten  fails  in  its  appeal,  it  need  only  be  said  to 
walk  nnerring-ly  here  would  require  the  insight 
of  a  prophet  and  the  balance  of  an  angel. 

ii 

What  everyone  should  take  as  a  fair  demand 
is  that  all  men  should  be  sincere  in  their  pro- 
fessions, and  that  we  should  justify  ourselves 
by  the  consistency  of  our  own  lives  rather  than 
by  the  wickedness  of  our  neighbours :  which  is 
nothing  new.  It  is  our  trouble  that  we  must 
emphasise  obvious  duties.  To  approach  the 
question  frankly  with  no  matter  what  good 
faith  will  lead  to  much  heart-burning,  perhaps, 
to  no  little  bitterness ;  but  if  we  realise  that  all 
sides  are  about  equally  to  blame,  we  may  in- 
duce an  earnestness  that  may  lead  to  better 
things.  It  is  in  that  hope  I  write.  Catholics 
and  Protestants  instead  of  saying  to  one  an- 
other the  things  with  which  we  are  familiar 
should  look  to  their  own  houses ;  and  if  in  this 
age  of  fashionable  agnosticism,  they  should 
conclude  that  the  general  enemy  is  the  atheist, 
socialist,  and  the  syndicalist,  they  should  still 
be  reminded  to  look  to  their  own  houses;  and 
if  the  agnostic  take  this  to  justify  himself,  he 


166  PRINCIPLES  OP  FREEDOM 

should  be  reminded  lie  has  never  done  anything 
to  justify  himself.  It  may  seem  a  curious  way 
for  inducing  harmony  to  set  out  to  prove  every- 
one in  the  wrong;  but  the  point  is  clear,  not  to 
attack  what  men  believe  but  to  ask  them  to  jus- 
tify their  words  by  their  deeds.  The  request 
is  not  unreasonable  and  it  may  be  asked  in  a 
tone  that  will  show  the  sincerity  of  him  who 
makes  it  and  waken  a  kindred  feeling  in  all 
earnest  men.  The  world  will  be  a  better 
place  to  live  in,  and  we  shall  be  all  better  friends 
when  every  man  makes  a  genuine  resolve  to 
give  us  all  the  example  of  a  better  life. 

iii 

A  development  that  would  require  a  treatise 
in  itself  I  will  but  touch  on,  to  suggest  to  all 
interested  a  matter  of  general  and  grave  con- 
cern— the  growing  materialism  of  religious 
bodies.  On  all  sides  self -constituted  defenders 
of  the  faith  are  troubling  themselves,  not  with 
the  faith  but  with  the  numbers  of  their  adher- 
ents who  have  jobs,  equal  sharers  in  emolu- 
ments, and  so  forth.  A  Protestant  of  standing 
writes  a  book  and  proves  his  religion  is  one  of 


RELIGION  167 

efficiency;  a  Catholic  of  equal  standing  quickly 
rejoins  with  another  book  to  prove  his  religion 
is  also  efficient;  each  blind  to  the  fact  that  the 
resulting  campaign  is  disgraceful  to  both. 
When  religion  ceases  to  represent  to  us  some- 
thing spiritual,  and  purely  spiritual,  we  begin 
to  drift  away  from  it.  **  Where  thy  treasure 
is,  there  thy  heart  is  also. "  ^  *  No  man  can  serve 
God  and  Mammon.''  The  modem  rejoinder  is 
familiar:  ^*We  must  live."  This,  our  gen- 
eration is  not  likely  to  forget.  The  grave  con- 
cern is  that  well-meaning  men  are  accustoming 
themselves  to  this  cry  to  sacrifice  all  higher 
considerations  for  the  *  *  equal  division  of  emolu- 
ments." Let  us  as  citizens  and  a  community 
see  that  every  man  has  the  right  and  the  means 
to  live;  but  when  self-interested  bodies  start 
a  rivalry  in  the  name  of  their  particular  creeds, 
we  know  it  ends  in  a  squalid  greed  and  fight  for 
place,  in  a  pursuit  of  luxury,  the  logical  out- 
come of  which  must  be  to  make  the  world  ugly, 
sordid  and  brutal.  It  would  be  a  mistake  to 
overlook  that  high-minded  men  are  allowing 
themselves  to  be  committed  by  plausible  rea- 
sons to  this  growing  evil.    It  is  misguided  en- 


168  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

thusiasm.  There  is  a  divine  authority  that 
warns  us  all:  **Be  zealous  for  the  better 
gifts." 

iv 

I  wish  to  examine  the  attitude  of  the  average 
Christian  to  the  Agnostic.  *^The  world  is  fall- 
ing away  from  religion,''  he  will  cry  when  de- 
pressed, without  thinking  how  much  he  himself 
may  he  a  contributing  cause.  Let  him  study  it 
in  this  light.  What  is  his  attitude  1  When  he 
comes  to  speak  of  the  tendency  of  the  age  he 
will  indulge  in  vague  generalities  about  athe- 
ism, socialism,  irreligion  and  the  rest;  always 
the  cause  is  outside  of  him,  and  against  him; 
he  is  not  part  of  it.  I  ask  him  to  pass  by  the 
atheist  awhile  and  take  what  may  be  of  more 
concern.  There  is  a  type  of  Catholic  and  Prot- 
estant who  has  as  little  genuine  religion  in  him 
as  any  infidel,  who  does  not  deny  the  letter  of 
the  law,  but  who  does  not  observe  its  spirit, 
whose  only  use  for  the  letter  is  to  criticise  and 
harass  adversaries.  Observe  the  high  use  he 
has  for  liberty — drinking,  card-playing,  gam- 
bling, luxury;  he  has  no  place  in  his  life  for  any 
worthy  deeds,  nay,  only  scorn  for  such.     Still 


RELIGION  169 

he  passes  for  orthodox.  If  he  is  a  Catholic,  he 
secures  that  by  putting  in  an  appearance  at 
Mass  on  Sundays.  His  mind  is  not  there;  he 
arrives  late  and  goes  early.  His  Protestant 
fellow  in  his  private  judgment  finds  more  scope : 
**Let  the  women  go  listen  to  the  parson. '^  This 
is  the  sort  of  saying  gives  him  such  a  conceit 
of  himself.  We  have  the  type  on  both  sides,  so 
all  can  see  it.  Now  it  is  not  in  the  way  of  the 
Pharisee  we  come  to  note  them,  but  to  note  that 
strange  as  it  may  appear,  either  or  both  to- 
gether will  come  to  applaud  the  denouncing  of 
the  atheist.  We  gather  such  into  our  religious 
societies,  and  flatter  them  that  they  are  adher- 
ents of  religion  and  the  bulwark  of  the  faith, 
and  they  forthwith  anathematise  the  atheist 
with  great  gusto.  The  one  so  anathematised  is 
often  as  worthless  as  themselves  with  a  conceit 
to  despise  priest  and  parson  alike.  But  it 
sometimes  happens  he  is  a  fine  character  who 
has  no  religion  as  most  of  us  understand  it, 
but  who  has  yet  a  fine  spiritual  fervour,  ready 
to  fight  and  make  sacrifices  for  a  national  or 
social  principle  that  he  believes  will  make  for 
better  things,  a  man  of  integrity  and  worth 
whom  the  best  of  men  may  be  glad  to  hold  as  a 


170  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

friend.  Yet,  we  find  in  the  condition  to  which 
we  have  drifted  such  a  one  may  be  pilloried 
by  wasters,  gamblers,  rioters,  a  crew  that  are 
the  curse  of  every  community.  We  lash  the 
atheist  and  the  age  but  give  little  heed  to  the 
insincerity  and  cant  of  those  we  do  not  refuse 
to  call  our  own.  What  an  example  for  the  man 
anathematised.  He  sees  the  vice  and  meanness 
of  those  we  allow  to  pass  for  orthodox,  and 
when  he  sees  also  the  complacency  of  the  better 
part,  he  is  unconvinced.  We  praise  the  sweet- 
ness of  the  healing  waters  of  Christ-like  char- 
ity, but  despite  our  gospel  he  never  gets  it, 
never.  We  give  him  execration,  injustice;  if 
we  let  him  go  with  a  word,  it  is  never  a  gentle 
word,  but  a  bitter  epithet;  and  we  wonder  he 
is  estranged,  when  he  sees  our  amazing  com- 
posure in  an  amazing  welter  of  hypocrisy  and 
deceit.  There  is  of  course  the  better  side,  the 
many  thousands  of  Catholics  and  Protestants 
who  sincerely  aim  at  better  things.  But  what 
has  to  be  admitted  is  that  most  sincerely  re- 
ligious people  adopt  to  the  man  of  no  estab- 
lished religion  the  same  attitude  as  does  the 
hypocrite:  they  join  in  the  general  cry.  They 
should  look  to  their  own  houses;  they  should 


RELIGION  171 

purge  the  temple  of  the  money-lender  and  the 
knave;  they  should  see  that  their  field  gives 
good  harvest;  they  should  remember  that  not 
to  the  atheist  only  but  to  the  orthodox  was  it 
written:  ^* Every  tree  therefore  that  doth  not 
yield  good  fruit  shall  be  cut  down  and  cast  into 
the  fire.'' 

V 

There  is  a  word  to  be  said  to  the  man  for 
whom  was  invented  the  curious  name  agnostic. 
I'm  concerned  only  with  him  who  is  sincere 
and  high-minded.  Let  us  pass  the  flippant 
critics  of  things  they  do  not  understand.  But 
all  sincere  men  are  comrades  in  a  deep  and  a 
fine  sense.  "What  the  honest  unbeliever  has  to 
keep  in  mind  is  that  the  darker  side  is  but  one 
side.  If  he  stands  studying  a  crowd  of  the  or- 
thodox and  finds  therein  the  drunkard,  the  gam- 
bler, the  sensualist ;  and  if  he  says  bitter  things 
of  the  value  of  religion  and  gets  in  return  the 
clerical  fiat  of  one  who  is  more  a  politician 
than  a  priest ;  and  if  he  rejoins  contemptuously, 
*'This  is  fit  for  women  and  children,"  let  him 
be  reminded  that  he  can  also  study  the  other 
side  if  he  care.     If  he  has  the  instinct  of  a 


172  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

fighter  he  must  know  every  army  has  in  its 
trail  the  camp-follower  and  the  vulture,  but 
when  the  battle  is  set  and  the  danger  is  im- 
minent, only  the  true  soldier  stands  his  ground. 
Because  some  who  are  of  poor  spirit  are  in 
high  place,  let  him  not  forget  the  old  spirit  still 
exists.  Not  only  the  women  but  the  best  in- 
tellects of  men  still  keep  the  old  traditions. 
Newman  and  Pascal,  Dante  and  Milton,  Eri- 
gena  and  Aquinas,  are  all  dead,  but  in  our  time 
even  they  have  had  followers  not  too  far  off. 
In  the  same  spirit  Gilbert  Chesterton  found 
wonder  at  a  wooden  post,  and  Francis  Thomp- 
son, in  his  divine  wandering,  troubled  the  gold 
gateways  of  the  stars.  Let  our  friend  before 
he  frames  his  final  judgment  pause  here.  He 
may  well  be  baffled  by  many  anomalies  of  the 
time,  his  eye  may  rest  on  the  meaner  horde,  his 
ear  be  filled  with  the  arrogance  of  some  un- 
worthy successor  of  Paul;  and  if  he  says: 
**Why  permit  these  things ?''  he  may  be  told 
there  are  some  alive  in  this  generation  who  will 
question  all  such  things,  and  who,  however  hard 
it  go  with  them,  have  no  fear  for  the  final 
victory. 


RELIGION  173 

vi 

Perhaps  the  conventional  Christian  and  the 
conventional  non-Christian  may  rest  a  moment 
to  consider  the  reality.  Between  the  bitter  be- 
liever and  the  exasperated  unbeliever,  Christi- 
anity is  being  turned  from  a  practice  to  a  po- 
lemic, and  if  we  are  to  recall  the  old  spirit  we 
must  recall  the  old  earnestness  and  simplicity 
of  the  early  Martyrs.  We  do  not  hear  that  they 
called  Nero  an  atheist,  but  we  do  hear  that  they 
went  singing  to  the  arena.  By  their  example 
we  may  recover  the  spirit  of  song,  and  have 
done  with  invective.  If  we  find  music  and  joy- 
ousness  in  the  old  conception,  it  is  not  in  the 
fashion  of  the  time  to  explain  it  away  in  some 
^^new  theology,"  for  he  to  whom  it  is  not  a 
fashion,  but  a  vital  thing,  keeps  his  anchor  by 
tradition.  To  him  it  is  the  shining  light  away 
in  the  mists  of  antiquity;  it  is  the  strong  sun 
over  the  living  world;  it  is  the  pillar  of  fire 
over  the  widenin.'^:  seas  and  worlds  of  the  un- 
knowm;  it  is  the  expanse  of  infinity.  When  he 
is  lost  in  its  mystery  he  adverts  to  the  wonder 
about  him,  for  all  that  is  wonderful  is  touched 


174  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

with  it,  and  all  that  is  lovely  is  its  expression. 
It  is  in  the  breath  of  the  wind,  pure  and  brac- 
ing from  the  mountain  top.  It  is  in  the  song 
of  the  lark  holding  his  musical  revel  in  the 
sunlight.  It  is  in  the  ecstasy  of  a  Spring  morn- 
ing. It  is  in  the  glory  of  all  beautiful  things. 
When  it  has  entered  and  purified  his  spirit,  his 
heart  goes  out  to  the  persecuted  in  all  ages  and 
countries.  None  will  he  reject.  '*I  am  not 
come  to  call  the  just  but  sinners.''  He  remem- 
bers those  words,  and  his  great  charity  encom- 
passes not  only  the  persecuted  orthodox,  but 
the  persecuted  heretics  and  infidels. 

vii 

I  will  not  say  if  such  an  endeavor  as  I  sug- 
gest can  have  an  immediate  success.  But  I 
think  it  will  be  a  step  forward  if  we  get  sincere 
men  on  one  side  to  understand  the  sincerity 
of  the  other  side ;  and  if  in  matters  of  religion 
and  speculation,  where  there  is  so  much  diffi- 
culty and  there  is  likely  to  be  so  much  con- 
flict of  opinion,  there  should  be  no  constraint 
but  rather  the  finest  charity  and  forbearance; 
then  the  orthodox  would  be  concerned  with 
practising  their  faith  rather  than  in  harassing 


RELIGION  175 

the  infidel,  and  the  infidel  would  receive  a  more 
useful  lesson  than  the  ill-considered  tirades  he 
despises.  He  may  remain  still  unconvinced,  but 
he  will  give  over  his  contempt.  This  question 
of  religion  is  one  on  which  men  will  differ, 
and  differing,  ultimately  they  will  fight  if  we 
find  no  better  way.  We  must  remember  while 
freedom  is  to  win  we  are  facing  a  national 
struggle,  and  if  we  are  threatened  within  by  a 
civil  war  of  creeds  it  may  undo  us.  That  is 
why  we  must  face  the  question.  That  is  why 
I  think  utter  frankness  in  these  grave  matters 
is  of  grave  urgency.  If  we  approach  them  in 
the  right  spirit  we  need  have  no  fear — for  at 
heart  the  most  of  men  are  susceptible  to  high 
appeals.  What  we  need  is  courage  and  inten- 
sity; it  is  gabbling  about  surface  things  makes 
the  bitterness.  If  in  truth  we  safeguard  the 
right  of  every  man  as  we  are  bound  to  do  we 
shall  win  the  confidence  of  all,  and  we  may 
hope  for  a  braver  and  better  future,  wherein 
some  light  of  the  primal  Beauty  may  wander 
again  over  earth  as  in  the  beginning  it  dawned 
on  chaos  when  the  Spirit  of  God  first  moved 
over  the  waters. 


CHAPTER  Xin 

INTELLECTUAL.   FREEDOM 


IT  will  probably  cause  surprise  if  I  say  there 
is,  possibly,  more  intellectual  freedom  in 
Ireland  than  elsewhere  in  Europe.  But  I  do 
not  mean  by  intellectual  freedom  conventional 
Free-thought,  which  is,  perhaps,  as  far  as  any 
superstition  from  true  freedom  of  the  mind. 
The  point  may  not  be  admitted  but  its  consid- 
eration will  clear  the  air,  and  help  to  dispose 
of  some  objections  hindering  that  spiritual  free- 
dom, fundamental  to  all  liberty. 


I  have  no  intention  here  of  in  any  way  criti- 
cising the  doctrine  of  Free-thought,  but  one  so 
named  cannot  be  ignored  when  we  consider  In- 
tellectual Freedom.  This  then,  has  to  be  borne 
in  mind  when  speaking  of  Free-thought,  that 
while  it  allows  you  latitude  of  opinion  in  many 

176 


INTELLECTUAL  FREEDOM  177 

things,  it  will  not  allow  you  freedom  in  all 
things,  in,  for  example,  Eevealed  Eeligion.  I 
only  mention  this  to  show  that  on  both  sides  of 
such  burning  questions  you  have  disputants 
dogmatic.  A  dogmatic  *'yes"  meets  an  equally 
dogmatic  *'no.''  The  dogmas  differ  and  it  is 
not  part  of  our  business  here  to  discuss  them : 
but  to  come  to  a  clear  conception  of  the  matter 
in  hand,  it  must  be  kept  in  mind,  that  if  you,  not- 
withstanding freely  of  your  own  accord,  ac- 
cept belief  in  certain  doctrines,  the  freethink- 
ers will  for  that  deny  you  freedom.  And  the 
freethinkers  are  right  in  that  they  are  dog- 
matic. (But  this  they  themselves  appear  to 
overlook.)  Freedom  is  absolutely  dogmatic. 
It  is  fundamentally  false  that  freedom  implies 
no  attachment  to  any  belief,  no  being  bound  by 
any  law,  **As  free  as  the  wind,^'  as  the  saying 
goes,  for  the  wind  is  not  free.  Simple  indeter- 
minism  is  not  liberty. 

iii 

We  must,  then,  find  the  true  conception  of 
Intellectual  Freedom.  It  is  the  freedom  of  the 
individual  to  follow  his  star  and  reach  his  goaL 
That  star  binds  him  down  to  certain  lines  and 


178  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

his  freedom  is  in  exact  proportion  to  his  fidel- 
ity to  the  lines.  The  seeming  paradox  may  be 
puzzling :  a  concrete  example  will  make  it  clear. 
Suppose  a  man,  shipwrecked,  finds  himself  at 
sea  in  an  open  boat,  without  his  bearings  or  a 
rudder.  He  is  at  the  mercy  of  the  wind  and 
wave,  without  freedom,  helpless.  But  give  him 
his  bearings  and  a  helm,  and  at  once  he  re- 
covers his  course ;  he  finds  his  position  and  can 
strike  the  path  to  freedom.  He  is  at  perfect 
liberty  to  scuttle  his  boat,  drive  it  on  the  rocks 
or  do  any  other  irrational  thing ;  but  if  he  would 
have  freedom,  he  must  follow  his  star. 

iv 

This  leads  us  to  track  a  certain  error  that 
has  confused  modem  debate.  A  man  in  as- 
sumed impartiality  tells  you  he  will  stand  away 
from  his  own  viewpoint  and  consider  a  case 
from  yours.  Now,  if  he  does  honestly  hold  by 
his  own  view  and  thinks  he  can  put  it  by  and 
judge  from  his  opponent 's,  he  is  deceiving  both 
himself  and  his  opponent.  He  can  do  so  appar- 
ently, but,  whatever  assumption  is  made,  he  is 
governed  subconsciously  by  his  own  firm  con- 
viction.   His  belief  is  around  him  like  an  atmos- 


INTELLECTUAL  FREEDOM  179 

phere;  it  goes  with  him  wherever  he  goes;  he 
can  only  stand  free  of  it  by  altogether  aban- 
doning it.  If  his  case  is  such  that  he  can  come 
absolutely  to  the  other  side  to  view  it  uninflu- 
enced by  his  own,  then  he  has  abandoned  his 
own.  He  is  like  a  man  in  a  boat  who  has  thrown 
over  rudder  and  bearings :  he  may  be  moved  by 
any  current:  he  is  adrift.  If  he  is  to  recover 
the  old  ground,  he  must  win  it  as  something  he 
never  had.  But  if  instead  of  this  he  does  at 
heart  hold  by  his  own  view,  he  should  give  over 
the  deception  that  he  is  uninfluenced  by  it  in 
framing  judgment.  It  is  psychologically  im- 
possible. Let  the  man  understand  it  as  a  duty 
to  himself  to  be  just  to  others,  and  to  substi- 
tute this  principle  for  his  spurious  impartial- 
ity. This  is  the  frank  and  straightforward 
course.  While  he  is  under  his  own  star,  he  is 
moving  in  its  light;  he  has,  if  unconsciously,  his 
hand  on  the  helm:  he  judges  all  currents  scru- 
pulously and  exactly,  but  always  from  his  own 
place  at  the  wheel  and  with  his  own  eyes.  To 
abandon  one  or  the  other  is  to  betray  his  trust, 
or  in  good  faith  and  ignorance  to  cast  it  off 
till  it  is  gone,  perhaps,  too  far  to  recover. 


180  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 


If  we  so  understand  intellectual  freedom,  in 
what  does  its  denial  consist!  In  this:  around 
every  set  of  principles  guiding  men,  there 
grows  up  a  corresponding  set  of  prejudices  that 
with  the  majority  in  practise  often  supersede 
the  principles;  and  these  prejudices  with  the 
march  of  time  assume  ^.uch  proportions,  gather 
such  power,  both  by  the  numbers  of  their  ad- 
herents and  the  authority  of  many  supporting 
them,  that  for  a  man  of  spirit,  knowing  them 
to  be  evil  and  urgent  of  resistance,  there  is 
needed  a  vigour  and  freedom  of  mind  that  but 
few  understand  and  even  fewer  appreciate  or 
encourage.  The  prejudices  that  grow  around 
a  man's  principles  are  like  weeds  and  poison  in 
his  garden:  they  blight  his  flowers,  trees  and 
fruit ;  and  he  must  go  forth  with  fire  and  sword 
and  strong  unsparing  hand  to  root  out  the  evil 
things.  He  will  find  with  his  courage  and 
strength  are  needed  passion  and  patience  and 
dogged  persistence.  For  men  defend  a  pre- 
judice with  bitter  venom  altogether  unlike  the 
fire  that  quickens  the  fighter  for  freedom ;  and 
the  destroyer  of  the  evil  may  find  himself  as- 


INTELLECTUAL  FREEDOM  181 

sailed  by  an  astonishing  combination, — cbarged 
with  bad  faith  or  treachery  or  vanity  or  sheer 
perversity,  in  proportion  as  those  who  dislike 
his  principles  deny  his  good  faith;  or  those 
who  profess  them,  because  of  his  vigour  and 
candour  denounce  him  for  an  enemy  within  the 
fold.  But  for  all  that  he  should  stand  fast. 
If  he  has  the  courage  so  to  do,  he  gives  a  fine 
example  of  intellectual  freedom. 

vi 

It  will  serve  us  to  consider  some  prejudices, 
free-thinking  and  religious.  First  the  free- 
thinker. He  has  a  prejudice  very  hard  to  kill. 
If  I  believe  in  the  beginning  what  Bernard 
Shaw  has  found  out  thus  late  in  the  day,  that 
priests  are  not  as  bad  as  they  are  painted,  the 
free-thinker  would  deny  me  intellectual  free- 
dom. The  fact  of  my  right  to  think  the  mat- 
ter out  and  come  to  that  conclusion  would  count 
for  nothing.  On  the  other  hand,  if  I  were 
known  to  have  professed  a  certain  faith  and  to 
have  abandoned  it,  he  would  acclaim  that  as 
casting  off  mental  slavery.  This  is  hopelessly 
confusing.  If  a  man  has  ceased  to  hold  a  cer- 
tain belief  he  deserves  no  credit  for  courage  iii 


182  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

saying  so  openly.  If  he  thinks  what  he  onee 
believed,  or  is  supposed  to  have  believed,  has 
no  vitality,  surely  he  can  have  no  reason  for 
being  afraid  of  it,  and  to  speak  of  dangerous 
consequences  from  it  to  him,  can  be  for  him 
at  least  only  a  bogy.  His  simple  denial  is, 
then,  no  mark  of  courage.  Courage  is  a  posi- 
tive thing.  Yet  he  may  well  have  that  courage. 
Suppose  him  in  taking  his  stand  to  have  taken 
up  some  social  faith  that  for  him  has  promise 
of  better  things.  He  will  find  his  new  creed 
surrounded  by  its  own  swarm  of  prejudices, 
and  if  he  refuse  to  worship  every  fetish  of  the 
free-thinker,  declaring  that  this  stands  to  him 
for  a  certain  definite,  beautiful  thing,  and  fight- 
ing for  it,  he  will  find  himself  denied  and 
scouted  by  his  new  friends.  He  may  find  him- 
self often  in  company  with  some  supposed  ene- 
mies. He  will  surely  need  in  his  sincere  atti- 
tude to  life  a  freedom  of  mind  that  is  not  a 
name  merely  but  a  positive  virtue  that  demands 
of  him  more  than  denunciation  of  obscurant- 
ism, the  recognition  of  a  personal  duty  and  the 
justification  of  personal  works. 


INTELLECTUAL  FREEDOM  183 

vii 

The  religious  prejudice  will  be  no  less  hard 
to  kill.  Indiscriminate  denunciation  of  unbe- 
lievers  as  wicked  men  serves  no  good  purpose 
and  leads  nowhere.  There  are  wicked  men  on 
all  sides.  Our  standard  must  be  one  that  will 
distinguish  the  sincere  men  on  all  sides;  and 
our  loyalty  to  our  particular  creeds  must  be 
shown  in  our  lives  and  labours,  not  in  the  re- 
viling of  the  infidel.  We  are  justified  in  cast- 
ing out  the  hypocrite  from  every  camp,  and 
when  we  come  to  this  task  we  can  be  sure  only 
of  the  hypocrites  in  our  own;  and  we  should 
lay  it  as  an  injunction  on  all  bodies  to  purge 
themselves.  The  burden  will  be  laid  on  all 
— not  one  surely  of  which  men  can  complain — * 
that  they  shall  prove  their  principles  in  action 
and  lay  their  prejudices  by.  Christians  might 
well  find  exemplars  in  the  early  martyrs,  those 
who  for  their  principles  went  so  readily  to  the 
lions.  One  may  anticipate  the  complacent  re- 
joinder: **This  is  not  so  exacting  an  age;  men 
are  not  asked  to  die  for  rehgion  now*' — and 
one  may  in  turn  reply,  that,  perhaps  our  age 
may  not  be  without  occasion  for  such  high  serv- 


184  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

ice,  but  that  we  may  be  unwilling  to  go  to  the 
lions.  Onr  time  has  its  own  trial — ^by  no  means 
unexacting  let  me  tell  you — ^but  we  quietly  slip 
it  by:  it  is  much  easier  to  revile  the  infidel. 
This  as  a  test  of  loyalty  should  be  pinned ;  we 
shall  shut  up  thereby  the  hypocrite.  And  the 
earnest  man,  more  conscious  of  his  own  burden, 
will  be  more  sympathetic,  generous  and  just, 
and  will  come  to  be  more  logical  and  to  see' 
what  Newman  well  remarked,  that  one  who  asks 
questions  shows  he  has  no  belief  and  in  ask- 
ing may  be  but  on  the  road  to  one.  If  to  ask 
a  question  is  to  express  a  doubt,  it  is  no  less, 
perhaps,  to  seek  a  way  out  of  it.  *^What  better 
can  he  do  than  inquire,  if  he  is  in  doubt?"  asks 
Newman,  **Not  to  inquire  is  in  his  case  to  be 
satisfied  with  disbelief. ' '  "We  should,  acting  in 
this  light,  instead  of  denouncing  the  questioner, 
answer  his  question  freely  and  frankly,  encour- 
age him  to  ask  others  and  put  him  one  or  two 
by  the  way.  Men  meeting  in  this  manner  may 
fitill  remain  on  opposite  sides,  but  there  will  be 
formed  between  them  a  bond  of  sympathy,  that 
mutual  sincerity  can  never  fail  to  establish. 
This  is  freedom,  and  a  fine  beautiful  thing, 
surely  worth  a  fine  effort.  What  we  have  grown 


INTELLBCTUAL  FREEDOM  185 

accustomed  to,  the  bitterness,  the  recrimina- 
tions, the  persecutions  and  retaliations,  are  all 
the  evil  weeds  of  prejudice,  growing  around  our 
principles  and  choking  them.  They  are  so  far 
a  denial  of  principle,  a  proof  of  mental  slavery. 
Our  freedom  will  attest  to  faith:  ''Where  the 
Spirit  of  the  Lord  is,  there  is  Liberty." 

viii 

This,  in  conclusion,  is  the  root  of  the  matter : 
to  claim  freedom  and  to  allow  it  in  like  meas- 
ure ;  rather  than  to  deny,  to  urge  men  to  follow 
their  beliefs :  only  thus  can  they  find  salvation. 
To  constrain  a  man  to  profess  what  we  profess 
is  worse  than  delusion :  should  he  give  lip  serv- 
ice to  what  he  does  not  hold  at  heart,  'twere 
for  him  deceitful  and  for  us  dangerous.  Where 
his  star  calls,  let  him  walk  sincerely.  If  his 
creed  is  insufficient  or  inconsistent,  in  his  strug- 
gle he  shall  test  it,  and  in  his  sincerity  he  must 
make  up  the  insufficiency  or  remove  the  incon- 
sistency. This  is  the  only  course  for  honour- 
able men  and  no  man  should  object.  To  repeat, 
it  puts  an  equal  burden  on  all, — the  onus  of 
justifying  the  faith  that  is  in  them.  Life  is 
a  divine  adventure  and  he  whose  faith  is  finest, 


186  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

'firmest  and  clearest  will  go  farthest.  God  does 
not  hold  his  honours  for  the  timid:  the  man 
who  buried  his  talent,  fearing  to  lose  it,  was 
cast  into  exterior  darkness.  He  who  will  step 
forward  fearlessly  will  be  justified.  **A11  things 
are  possible  to  him  who  believeth."  Many  on 
both  sides  may  be  surprised  to  find  suddenly 
proposed  as  a  test  to  both  sides  the  readiness 
to  adventure  bravely  on  the  Sea  of  Life.  The 
free-thinker  may  be  astonished  to  hear,  not  that 
he  goes  too  far,  but  does  not  go  far  enough.  He 
may  gasp  at  the  test,  but  it  is  in  effect  the  test 
and  the  only  true  one.  The  man  who  does  not 
believe  he  is  to  be  blotted  out  when  his  body 
ceases  to  breathe,  who  holds  all  history  for  his 
heritage  and  the  wide  present  for  his  battle- 
ground, believes  also  the  future  is  no  repellent 
void  but  a  widening  and  alluring  world.  If  in 
his  travel  he  is  scrupulous  in  detail,  it  is  in  the 
spirit  of  the  mariner  who  will  neither  court  a 
shipwreck  nor  be  denied  his  adventure.  He 
cannot  deny  to  others  the  right  to  hesitate  and 
halt  by  the  way,  but  his  spirit  asks  no  less  than 
the  eternal  and  the  infinite.  Yes,  but  many  good 
religious  people  are  not  used  to  seeing  the  is- 
sue in  this  light,  and  those  who  make  a  trade 


INTELLECTXJAL  FREEDOM  187 

of  fanning  old  bitterness,  will  still  ply  their 
bitter  trade,  crying  tliat  anarchists,  atheists, 
heretics,  infidels,  all  outcasts  and  wicked  men, 
are  all  rampant  for  our  destruction.  It  may 
be  disputed,  but,  admitting  it,  one  may  ask.  Is 
there  no  place  among  Christian  people  for  those 
distinctive  virtues  on  which  we  base  the  su- 
periority of  our  religion.  When  the  need  is 
greatest,  should  the  practise  be  less  urgent?  It 
is  not  evident  that  the  free-thinker  is  obliged 
by  any  of  his  principles  to  give  better  example. 
It  is  evident  the  Christian  is  so  obliged.  Why 
is  he  found  wanting!  If  human  weakness  were 
pleaded,  one  could  understand.  It  is  against 
the  making  a  virtue  of  it  lies  the  protest.  How 
many  noble  things  there  are  in  our  philoso- 
phies, and  how  little  practised.  No  violent  con- 
vulsions should  be  needed  to  make  us  free,  if 
men  were  but  consistent:  we  should  find  our- 
selves wakening  from  a  wicked  dream  in  a 
bloodless  and  beautiful  revolution.  We  are  in 
the  desert  truly  .and  a  long  way  from  the  Prom- 
ised Land.  But  we  must  get  to  the  higher 
ground  and  consider  our  position;  and  if  one 
by  one  we  are  stripped  of  the  prejudices  that 
too  long  have  usurped  the  place  of  faith,  and 


188  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

we  find  ourselves,  to  our  dismay,  perhaps  lack- 
ing that  faith  that  we  have  so  long  shouted  but 
so  little  testified,  and  tremble  on  the  verge  of 
panic,  there  is  one  last  line  that  gives  to  all 
timidity  and  objections  in  four  words  with  di- 
vine simplicity  and  completeness  a  final  an- 
swer:   **Fear  not;  only  believe." 


CHAPTER  XIV 

MILITARISM 


TO  defend  or  recover  freedom  men  must  be 
always  ready  for  the  appeal  to  arms.  Here 
is  a  principle  that  has  been  vindicated  through 
all  history  and  needs  vindication  now.  But  in 
our  time  the  question  of  rightful  war  has  been 
crossed  by  the  evil  of  militarism,  and  in  our 
assertion  of  the  principle,  that  in  the  last  re- 
sort freemen  must  have  recourse  to  the  sword, 
we  find  ourselves  crossed  by  the  anti-militarist 
campaign.  We  must  dispose  of  this  confusing 
element  before  we  can  come  to  the  ethics  of 
war.  Of  the  evil  of  militarism  there  can  be  no 
question,  but  a  careful  study  of  some  anti-mili- 
taristic literature  discloses  very  different  mo- 
tives for  the  campaign.  I  propose  to  lay  some 
of  the  motives  bare  and  let  the  reader  judge 
whether  there  may  not  be  an  insidious  plot  on 
foot  to  make  a  deal  between  the  big  nations  to 


190  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

crush  the  little  ones.  For  this  purpose  I  will 
consider  two  books  on  the  question,  one  by  Mr. 
Norman  Angell,  ^  *  The  Great  Illusion, ' '  and  one 
by  M.  Jacques  Novikow,  *^War  and  Its  Alleged 
Benefits.'^  In  the  work  of  Mr.  Angell  the  reader 
will  find  the  suggestion  of  the  deal,  while  in  the 
work  of  M.  Novikow  is  given  a  clear  and  hon- 
est statement  of  the  anti-militarist  position, 
with  which  we  can  all  heartily  agree.  Those  of 
us  who  would  assert  our  freedom  should  under- 
stand the  right  anti-militarist  position,  because 
in  its  exponents  we  shall  find  allies  at  many 
points.  But  with  Mr.  Angell's  book  it  is  other- 
wise. These  points  emerge:  the  basis  of  mo- 
rality is  self-interest;  the  Great  Powers  have 
nothing  to  gain  by  destroying  one  another,  they 
should  agree  to  police  and  exploit  the  territory 
of  the  ^^ backward  races'';  if  the  statesmen  take 
a  different  view  from  the  financiers,  the  finan- 
ciers can  bring  pressure  to  bear  on  the  states- 
men by  their  international  organization;  the 
capitalist  has  no  country.  Well,  our  comment 
is,  the  patriot  has  a  country,  and  when  he 
wakens  to  the  new  danger,  he  may  spoil  the 
capitalist  dream,  and  this  book  of  Mr.  AngelPs 


MILITARISM  191 

may  in  a  sense  other  than  the  author  intended 
be  appropriately  named  *  *  The  Great  Illusion. ' ' 

ii 

The  limits  of  this  essay  do  not  admit  of  de- 
tailed examination  of  the  book  named.  What 
I  propose  to  do  is  make  characteristic  extracts 
sufficiently  full  to  let  the  reader  form  judgment. 
As  we  are  only  concerned  for  the  present  with 
the  danger  I  mention,  I  take  particular  notice 
of  Mr.  AngelPs  book,  and  I  refer  the  reader  for 
further  study  to  the  original.  But  the  charge 
of  taking  an  accidental  line  from  its  context 
cannot  be  made  here,  as  the  extracts  are  numer- 
ous, the  tendency  of  all  alike,  and  more  of  the 
same  nature  can  be  found.  I  divide  the  ex- 
tracts into  three  groups,  which  I  name : 

1.  The  Ethics  of  the  Case. 

2.  The  Power  of  Money. 

3.  The  Deal. 

Where  italics  are  used  they  are  mine. 

1.  THE  ETHICS  OF  THE  CASE.— **  The 
real  basis  of  Social  Morality  is  self-interest." 
( ^  *  The  Great  Hlusion, ' '  3rd  Ed.,  p.  66.)  '' Have 
we  not  abundant  evidence,  indeed,  that  the  pas- 


192  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

sion  of  patriotism,  as  divorced  from  material 
interest,  is  being  modified  by  the  pressure  of 
material  interest?"  (p.  167.)  *^ Piracy  was 
magnificent,  doubtless,  but  it  was  not  busi- 
ness." (Speaking  of  the  old  Vikings,  p.  245.) 
*  *  The  pacifist  propaganda  has  failed  largely  be- 
cause it  has  not  put  (and  proven)  the  plea  of 
interest  as  distinct  from  the  moral  plea."  (p. 
321.) 

2.  THE  POWER  OF  MONEY.—*  ^  The  com- 
plexity of  modern  finance  makes  New  York  de- 
pendent on  London,  London  upon  Paris,  Paris 
upon  Berlin,  to  a  greater  degree  than  has  ever 
yet  been  the  case  in  history."     (p.  47.) 

**It  would  be  a  miracle  if  already  at  tliis 
point  the  whole  influence  of  British  Finance 
were  not  thrown  against  the  action  of  the  Brit- 
ish Government."  (On  the  assumed  British 
capture  of  Hamburg,  p.  53). 

**The  most  absolute  despots  cannot  command 
money,"    (p.  226.) 

''With  reference  to  capital,  it  may  almost  be 
said  that  it  is  organized  so  naturally  interna- 
tionally that  formal  organization,  is  not  neces- 
sary,"   (p.  269.) 

3.  THE  DEAL:— *' France  has  benefited  by 


MILITARISM  193 

the  conquest  of  Algeria,  England  by  that  of 
India,  because  in  each  case  the  arms  were  em- 
ployed not,  properly  speaking,  for  conquest  at 
all,  but  for  police  purposes/'     (p.  115.) 

*^  While  even  the  wildest  Pan-German  has 
never  cast  his  eyes  in  the  direction  of  Canada, 
he  has  cast  them,  and  does  cast  them,  in  the 
direction  of  Asia  Minor.  .  .  .  Germany 
may  need  to  police  Asia  Minor.''  (pp.  117, 
118.) 

^^It  is  much  more  to  our  interest  to  have  an 
orderly  and  organised  Asia  Mimor  mider  Ger- 
man  tutelage  than  to  have  an  u/norganised  and 
disorderly  one  ivhich  should  he  independent,'' 
(p.  120.) 

' '  Sir  Harry  Johnson,  in  the  '  Nineteenth  Cen- 
tury' for  December,  1910,  comes  a  great  deal 
nearer  to  touching  the  real  kernel  of  the  prob- 
lem. .  .  .  He  adds  that  the  best  informed 
Germans  used  this  language  to  him:  ^You 
know  that  we  ought  to  mahe  common  cause  in 
our  dealings  with  backward  races  of  the 
world!'  " 

The  quotations  speak  for  themselves.  Note 
the  policing  of  the  **  backward  races.  *'  The 
Colonies  are  not  in  favour.    Mr.  Angell  writes : 


194  PRINCIPLES  OP  FREEDOM 

* '  What  in  the  name  of  common  sense  is  the  ad« 
vantage  of  conquering  them  if  the  only  policy 
is  to  let  them  do  as  they  Hke  r '  (p.  92. )  South 
Africa  occasions  bitter  reflections:  **The  pres- 
ent Government  of  the  Transvaal  is  in  the 
hands  of  the  Boer  Party.''  (p.  95.)  And  he 
warns  Germany,  that,  supposing  she  wishes  to 
conquer  South  Africa,  **She  would  learn  that 
the  policy  that  Great  Britain  has  adopted  was 
not  adopted  by  philanthropy,  but  in  the  hard 
school  of  bitter  experience."  (p.  104.)  We 
believe  him,  and  we  may  have  to  teach  a  lesson 
or  two  in  the  same  school.  It  may  be  noted  in 
passing  Mr.  Angell  gives  Ireland  the  honour 
of  a  reference.  In  reply  to  a  critic  of  the  Morn- 
ing Post,  who  wrote  thus:  **It  is  the  sublime 
quality  of  human  nature  that  every  great  na- 
tion has  produced  citizens  ready  to  sacrifice 
themselves  rather  than  submit  to  external  force, 
attempting  to  dictate  to  them  a  conception 
other  than  their  own  of  what  is  right."  (p. 
254.)  Mr.  Angell  replied:  ^^One  is,  of  course, 
surprised  to  see  the  foregoing  in  the  Morning 
Post;  the  concluding  phrase  would  justify  the 
present  agitation  in  India,  or  in  Egjrpt,  or  in 
Ireland  against  British  rule."    (p.  254.)    Com- 


MILITARISM  195 

naent  is  needless.  The  reading  and  re-reading 
of  this  book  forces  the  conclusion  as  to  its  sin- 
ister design.  Once  that  design  is  exposed  its 
danger  recedes.  There  is  one  at  least  of  the 
'^backward  races''  that  may  not  be  sufficiently 
alive  to  self-interest,  but  may  for  all  that  upset 
the  capitalist  table  and  scatter  the  deal  by  what 
Euskin  described  in  another  context  as  ^Hhe 
inconvenience  of  the  reappearance  of  a  soul.'' 

iii 

We  must  not  fail  to  distinguish  the  worth  of 
the  best  type  of  anti-militarist  and  to  value  the 
truth  of  his  statement.  It  is  curious  to  find 
Mr.  Angell  writing  an  introduction  to  M.  Novi- 
kow's  book,  for  M.  Novikow's  position  is,  in 
our  point  of  view,  quite  different.  He  does 
not  draw  the  fine  distinction  of  policing  the 
'^backward  races."  Eather,  he  defends  the 
Bengalis.  Suppose  their  rights  had  never  been 
violated,  he  says :  *  ^  They  would  have  held  their 
heads  higher ;  they  would  have  been  proud  and 
dignified,  and  perhaps  might  have  taken  for 
their  motto,  Dieu  et  mon  droits'  (*^War  and 
Its  Alleged  Benefits."  p.  12.)  He  can  be  ironi- 
cal and  he  can  be  warm.  Later,  he  writes :  *  *  The 


196  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

French  (and  all  other  people)  should  vindicate 
their  rights  with  their  last  drop  of  blood;  so 
what  I  write  does  not  refer  to  those  who  de- 
fend their  rights  but  to  those  who  violate  the 
rights  of  others.''  (Note  p.  70.)  He  does  not 
put  by  the  moral  plea,  but  says:  ^^ Political 
servitude  develops  the  greatest  defects  in  the 
subjugated  peoples."  (p.  79.)  And  he  pays 
his  tribute  to  those  who  die  for  a  noble  cause: 
*'My  warmest  sympathy  goes  out  to  those  noble 
victims  who  preferred  death  to  disgrace."  (p. 
82.)  This  is  the  true  attitude  and  one  to  ad- 
mire; and  any  writer  worthy  of  esteem  who 
writes  for  peace  never  fails  to  take  the  same 
stand.  Emerson,  in  his  essay  on  *^War," 
makes  a  fine  appeal  for  peace,  but  he  writes: 
*'If  peace  is  sought  to  be  defended  or  pre- 
served for  the  safety  of  the  luxurious  or  the 
timid,  it  is  a  sham  and  the  peace  will  be  base. 
War  is  better,  and  the  peace  will  be  broken." 
And  elsewhere  on  ^^ Politics,"  he  writes:  **A 
nation  of  men  unanimously  bent  on  freedom  or 
conquest  can  easily  confound  the  arithmetic  of 
the  statists  and  achieve  extravagant  actions 
out  of  all  proportions  to  their  means."  Yes, 
and  by  our  unanimity  for  freedom  we  mean  to 
prove  it  true. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE   EMPIRE 


WITH  the  iminediate  promise  of  Home 
Rule  many  strange  apologists  for  the 
Empire  have  stepped  into  the  smi.  Perhaps  it 
is  well — ^we  ma}^  find  ourselves  soon  more  di- 
rectly than  heretofore  struggling  with  the 
Empire.  So  far  the  fight  has  been  confused. 
Imperialists  fighting  for  Home  Rule  obscured 
the  fact  that  they  were  not  fighting  the  Empire. 
Now  Home  Rule  is  likely  to  come,  and  it  will 
serve  at  least  the  good  purpose  of  clearing  the 
air  and  setting  the  issue  definitely  between  the 
nation  and  the  Empire.  We  shall  have  our 
say  for  the  nation,  but  as  even  now  many 
things,  false  and  hypocritical,  are  being  urged 
on  behalf  of  the  Empire,  it  will  serve  us  to 
examine  the  Imperial  creed  and  show  its  tyr- 
anny, cruelty,  hypocrisy,  and  expose  the 
danger  of  giving  it  any  pretext  whatever  for 

197 


198  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

aggression.  For  the  Empire,  as  we  know  it 
and  deal  with  it,  is  a  bad  thing  in  itself,  and 
we  must  not  only  get  free  of  it  and  not  be 
again  trapped  by  it,  but  must  rather  give  hope 
and  encouragement  to  every  nation  fighting  the 
same  fight  all  the  world  over. 

ii 

One  candid  writer,  Machiavelli,  has  put  the 
Imperial  creed  into  a  book,  the  examination  of 
which  will — for  those  willing  to  see — clear  the 
air  of  illusion.  Now,  we  are  conscious  that  de- 
fenders of  the  Empire  profess  to  be  shocked  by 
the  wickedness  of  Machiavelli 's  utterance — ^we 
shall  hear  Macaulay  later — ^but  this  shocked  at- 
titude won't  delude  us.  Let  those  who  have 
not  read  Machiavelli 's  book,  *^The  Prince," 
consider  carefully  the  extracts  given  below  and 
see  exactly  how  they  fit  the  English  occupation 
of  Ireland,  and  understand  thoroughly  that  the 
Empire  is  a  thing,  bad  in  itself,  utterly  wicked, 
to  be  resisted  everywhere,  fought  without  ceas- 
ing, renounced  with  fervour  and  without  quali- 
fication, as  we  have  been  taught  from  the  cradle 
to  renounce  the  Devil  with  all  his  works  and 
pomps.     Consider  first  the  invasion.    Machia- 


THE  EMPIRE  199 

velli  speaks: — **Tlie  coimnoii  metliod  in  such 
cases  is  this.  As  soon  as  a  foreign  potentate 
enters  into  a  province  those  who  are  weaker 
or  disobliged  join  themselves  with  him  ont  of 
emulation  and  animosity  to  those  who  are  above 
them,  insomuch  that  in  respect  to  those  inferior 
lords  no  pains  are  to  be  omitted  that  may  gain 
them;  and  when  gained,  they  will  readily  and 
unanimously  fall  into  one  mass  with  the  State 
that  is  conquered.  Only  the  conqueror  is  to 
take  special  care  that  they  grow  not  too  strong, 
nor  be  entrusted  with  too  much  authority,  and 
then  he  can  easily  with  his  own  forces  and  their 
assistance  keep  down  the  greatness  of  his  neigh- 
bours, and  make  himself  absolute  arbiter  in 
that  province. '^  Here  is  the  old  maxim,  ^^  Di- 
vide and  conquer. ' '  To  gain  an  entry  some  pre- 
tense is  advisable.  Machiavelli  speaks  with  ap- 
proval of  a  certain  potentate  who  always  made 
religion  a  pretence.  Having  entered  a  vigorous 
policy  must  be  pursued.  We  read — *^He  who 
usurps  the  government  of  any  State  is  to  exe- 
cute and  put  in  practice  all  the  cruelties  which 
he  thinks  material  at  once.'^  Cromwell  rises 
before  us. 

*^A  prince,''  says  Machiavelli,  *4s  not  to  re- 


200  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

gard  tlie  scandal  of  being  cruel  if  thereby  lie 
keeps  bis  subjects  in  tbeir  allegiance. '  *  *  *  For, ' ' 
he  is  cautioned,  ^^  whoever  conquers  a  free  town 
and  does  not  demolish  it  commits  a  great  error 
and  may  expect  to  be  ruined  himself;  because 
whenever  the  citizens  are  disposed  to  revolt 
they  betake  themselves  of  course  to  that  blessed 
name  of  Liberty,  and  the  laws  of  their  an- 
cestors, which  no  length  of  time  nor  kind  usage 
whatever  will  be  able  to  eradicate/'  An  alter- 
native to  utter  destruction  is  flattery  and  in- 
dulgence. ^^Men  are  either  to  be  flattered  and 
indulged  or  utterly  destroyed/'  We  think  of 
the  titles  and  the  bribes.  Again,  ^'A  town  that 
has  been  anciently  free  cannot  more  easily  be 
kept  in  subjection  than  by  employing  its  own 
citizens.''  We  think  of  the  place-hunter,  the 
King's  visit,  the  *' loyal"  address.  To  make  the 
conquest  secure  we  read :  ^*  When  a  prince  con- 
quers a  new  State  and  annexes  it  as  a  member 
to  his  old,  then  it  is  necessary  your  subjects  be 
disarmed,  all  but  such  as  appeared  for  you  in 
the  conquest,  and  they  are  to  be  mollified  by 
degrees  and  brought  into  such  a  condition  of 
laziness  and  e:ffeminacy  that  in  time  your  whole 
strength  may  devolve  upon  your  own  natural 


THE  EMPIRE  201 

militia."  We  think  of  the  Arms  Acts  and  our 
weakened  people.  But  while  one-half  is  dis- 
armed and  the  other  half  bribed,  with  neither 
need  the  conqueror  keep  faith.  We  read:  **A 
prince  who  is  wise  and  prudent  cannot,  or  ought 
not,  to  keep  his  parole,  when  the  keeping  of  it 
is  to  his  prejudice  and  the  causes  for  which  he 
promised  removed.''  This  is  made  very  clear 
to  prevent  any  mistake.  *^It  is  of  great  conse- 
quence to  disguise  your  inclination  and  play 
the  hypocrite  well.''  We  think  of  the  Broken 
Treaty  and  countless  other  breaches  of  faith. 
It  is,  of  course,  well  to  seem  honourable,  but 
Machiavelli  cautions:  ^^It  is  honourable  to 
seem  mild,  and  merciful,  and  courteous,  and  re- 
ligious, and  sincere,  and  indeed  to  be  so,  pro- 
vided your  mind  be  so  rectified  and  prepared, 
that  you  can  act  quite  contrary  upon  occasion." 
Should  anyone  hesitate  at  all  this  let  him  hear : 
**He  is  not  to  concern  himself  if  run  under  the 
infamy  of  those  vices,  without  which  his  do- 
minion was  not  to  be  preserved."  Thus  far  the 
philosophy  of  Machiavelli.  The  Imperialist  out 
to  ** civilise  the  barbarians"  is,  of  course, 
shocked  by  such  wickedness ;  but  we  are  begin- 
ning to  open  our  eyes  to  the  wickedness  and 


202  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

hypocrisy  of  both.  To  us  this  book  reads  as  if 
a  shrewd  observer  of  the  English  Occupation 
in  Ireland  had  noted  the  attending  features  and 
based  these  principles  thereon.  We  have  reason 
to  be  grateful  to  Machiavelli  for  his  exposi- 
tion. His  advice  to  the  prince,  in  effect,  lays 
bare  the  marauders  of  his  age  and  helps  us  to 
expose  the  Empire  in  our  own. 

iii 

There  is  a  lesson  to  be  learnt  from  the  fact 
that  this  book  of  Machiavelli 's,  written  four 
centuries  ago  in  Italy,  is  so  apt  here  to-day. 
We  must  take  this  exposition  as  the  creed  of 
Empire  and  have  no  truck  with  the  Empire.  It 
may  be  argued  that  the  old  arts  will  be  no 
longer  practised  on  us.  Let  the  new  supporters 
of  the  Empire  know  that  by  the  new  alliance 
they  should  practise  these  arts  on  other  peo- 
ple, which  would  be  infamy.  We  are  not  going 
to  hold  other  people  down ;  we  are  going  to  en- 
courage them  to  stand  up.  If  it  means  a  fur- 
ther fight  we  have  plenty  of  stimulus  still.  Our 
oppression  has  been  doubly  bitter  for  having 
been  mean.  The  tyranny  of  a  strong  mind 
makes  us  rage,  but  the  tyranny  of  a  mean  one 


THE  EMPIRE  203 

is  altogether  insufferable.  The  cruelty  of  a 
Cromwell  can  be  forgotten  more  easily  than  the 
cant  of  a  Macaulay.  When  we  read  certain 
lines  we  go  into  a  blaze,  and  that  j&re  will  bum 
till  it  has  burnt  every  opposition  out.  In  his 
essay  on  Milton,  Macaulay  having  written  much 
bombast  on  the  English  Eevolution,  introduces 
this  characteristic  sentiment :  ^  ^  One  part  of  the 
Empire  there  was,  so  unhappily  circumstanced, 
that  at  that  time  its  misery  was  necessary  to 
our  happiness  and  its  slavery  to  our  freedom. ' ' 
For  insolence  this  would  be  hard  to  beat.  Let 
it  be  noted  well.  It  is  the  philosophy  of  the. 
'* Predominant  Partner.''  If  he  had  thanked 
God  for  having  our  throats  to  cut,  and  cut  them 
with  loud  gratitude  like  Cromwell,  a  later  gen- 
eration would  be  incensed.  But  this  other  at- 
titude is  the  gall  in  the  cup.  Macaulay,  is  of 
course  shocked  by  Machiavelli's  *^ Prince.'' 
In  his  essay  on  Machiavelli  we  read:  *^It  is 
indeed  scarcely  possible  for  any  person  not  well 
acquainted  with  the  history  and  literature  of 
Italy  to  read  without  horror  and  amazement  the 
celebrated  treatise  which  has  brought  so  much 
obloquy  on  the  name  of  Machiavelli.  Such  a 
display  of  wickedness,  naked,  yet  not  ashamed, 


204  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

such  cool,  judicious,  scientific  atrocity,  seemed 
rather  to  belong  to  a  fiend  than  to  the  most 
depraved  of  men."  But,  later,  in  the  same  es- 
say, is  a  valuable  side-light.  He  writes  of  Ma- 
chiavelli  as  a  man  '^  whose  only  fault  was  that, 
having  adopted  some  of  the  maxims  then  gen- 
erally received,  he  arranged  them  most  lumi- 
nously and  expressed  them  more  forcibly  than 
any  other  writer.''  Here  we  have  the  truth,  of 
course  not  so  intended,  but  evident:  Machia- 
velli's  crime  is  not  for  the  sentiments  he  enter- 
tained but  for  writing  them  down  luminously 
and  forcibly — in  other  words,  for  gi\ang  the 
show  away. 

Think  of  Macaulay's  *^  horror  and  amaze- 
ment,'' and  read  this  further  in  the  same  es- 
say: ^^  Every  man  who  has  seen  the  world 
knows  that  nothing  is  so  useless  as  a  general 
maxim.  If  it  be  very  moral  and  very  true  it 
may  serve  for  a  copy  to  a  charity  boy."  So  the 
very  moral  and  the  very  true  are  not  for  the 
statesman  but  for  the  charity-boy.  This  per- 
haps may  be  defended  as  irony;  hardly,  but 
even  so,  in  such  irony  the  character  appears  as 
plainly  as  in  volumes  of  solemn  rant.  To  us  it 
stands  out  clearly  as  the  characteristic  attitude 


THE  EMPIRE  205 

of  the  English  Government.  The  English  peo- 
ple are  nsed  to  it,  practise  it,  and  will  put  up 
with  it;  but  the  Irish  people  never  were,  are 
not  now,  and  never  will  be  used  to  it;  and  we 
won't  put  up  with  it.  We  get  calm  as  old 
atrocities  recede  into  history,  but  to  repeat  the 
old  cant,  above  all  to  try  and  sustain  such  now, 
sets  all  the  old  fire  blazing — ^blazing  with  a 
fierceness  that  will  end  only  with  the  British 
connection. 

iv 

Not  many  of  us  in  Ireland  will  be  deceived 
by  Macaulay,  but  there  is  danger  in  an  oc- 
casional note  of  writers,  such  as  Bernard  Shaw 
and  Stuart  Mill.  Our  instinct  often  saves  us 
by  natural  repugnance  from  the  hypocrite,  when 
we  may  be  confused  by  some  sentiment  of  a 
sincere  man,  not  foreseeing  its  tendency.  When 
an  aggressive  power  looks  for  an  opening  for 
aggression  it  first  looks  for  a  pretext,  and  our 
danger  lies  in  men's  readiness  to  give  it  the  pre- 
text. Such  a  sentiment  as  this  from  Mill — on 
** Liberty''  gives  the  required  opening:  *^ Des- 
potism is  a  legitimate  mode  of  government 
in    dealing    with    Barbarians,    provided    the 


206  PHINOIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

end  be  their  improvement;  or  this  from 
Shaw's  preface  to  the  Home  Rule  edition  of 
^^John  BulPs  Other  Island:''  *'I  am  prepared 
to  Steam-roll  Tibet  if  Tibet  persist  in  refusing 
me  my  international  rights."  Now,  it  is  within 
our  right  to  enforce  a  principle  within  our  own 
territory,  but  to  force  it  on  other  people,  called 
for  the  occasion  ^'barbarians,"  is  quite  another 
thing.  Shaw  may  get  wrathful,  and  genuinely 
so,  over  the  Denshawai  horror,  and  expose  it 
nakedly  and  vividly  as  he  did  in  his  first  edition 
of  **John  Bull's  Other  Island,"  Preface  for 
Politicians ;  but  the  aggressors  are  undisturbed 
as  long  as  he  gives  them  pretexts  with  his 
** steam-roll  Tibet"  phrase.  And  when  he  says 
further  that  he  is  prepared  to  co-operate  with 
France,  Italy,  Eussia,  Germany  and  England 
in  Morocco,  Tripoli,, Siberia  and  Africa  to  civi- 
lise these  places,  not  only  are  his  denunciations 
of  Denshawai  horrors  of  no  avail — except  to 
draw  tears  after  the  event — ^but  he  cannot  co- 
operate in  the  civilising  process  without  prac- 
tising the  cruelty ;  and  perhaps  in  their  privacy 
the  empire-makers  may  smile  when  Shaw  writes 
of  Empire  with  evident  earnestness  as  '*a  name 
that  every  man  who  has  ever  felt  the  sacred- 


THE  EMPIRE  207 

ness  of  his  own  native  soil  to  him,  and  thus 
learnt  to  regard  that  feeling  in  other  men  as 
something  holy  and  inviolable,  spits  out  of  his 
mouth  with  enormous  contempt.''  When,  fur- 
ther, in  his  * ^ Representative  Government''  Mill 
tells  the  English  people — a  thing  about  which 
Shaw  has  no  illusions — tl^at  they  are  ^'the 
power  which  of  all  in  existence  best  under- 
stands liberty,  and  whatever  may  have  been  its 
errors  in  the  past,  has  attained  to  more  of 
conscience  and  moral  principle  in  its  dealing 
with  foreigners  than  any  other  great  nation 
seems  either  to  conceive  as  possible  or  recog- 
nise as  desirable" — they  not  only  go  forward 
to  civilize  the  barbarians  by  Denshawai  horrors, 
but  they  do  so  unctuously  in  the  true  Macau- 
layan  style.  We  feel  a  natural  wrath  at  all  this, 
not  unmingled  with  amusement  and  amazement. 
In  studying  the  question  we  read  much  that 
rouses  anger  and  contempt,  but  one  must  laugh 
out  heartily  in  coming  to  this  gem  of  Mill's, 
uttered  with  all  Mill 's  solemnity :  * '  Place-hunt- 
ing is  a  form  of  ambition  to  which  the  English, 
considered  nationally,  are  almost  strangers." 
When  the  sincerest  expression  of  the  English 
mind  can  produce  this  we  need  to  have  our 


208  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

wits  about  us ;  and  when,  as  just  now,  so  much 
nonsense,  and  dangerous  nonsense,  is  being 
poured  abroad  about  the  Empire,  we  need  to 
pause,  carefully  consider  all  these  things,  and 
be  on  our  guard. 

V 

In  conclusion,  we  may  add  our  own  word 
to  the  talk  of  the  hour — the  politicians  on  Home 
Rule.  It  should  raise  a  smile  to  hear  so  often 
the  prophecy  that  Ireland  will  be  loyal  to  the 
Empire  when  she  gets  Home  Eule.  We  are  sur- 
prised that  any  Irishman  could  be  so  foolish, 
though  no  doubt  many  Englishmen  are  so  sim- 
ple as  to  believe  it.  History  and  experience 
alike  deny  it.  Possibly  the  Home  Rule  chiefs 
realise  their  active  service  is  now  limited  to 
a  decade  or  two,  and  assume  Home  Rule  may 
be  the  limit  for  that  time,  and  speak  only  for 
that  time ;  but  at  the  end  of  that  time  our  gen- 
eration will  be  \^gorous  and  combative,  and  if 
we  cannot  come  into  our  own  before  then,  we 
shall  be  ready  then.  We  need  say  for  the  mo- 
ment no  more  than  this — the  limit  of  the  old 
generation  is  not  the  limit  of  ours.  If  anyone 
doubt  the  further  step  to  take  let  him  consider 


THE  EMPIRE  209 

our  history,  recent  and  remote.  The  old  effort 
to  subdue  or  exterminate  us  having  failed,  the 
new  effort  to  conciliate  us  began.  Minor  con- 
cessions led  to  the  bigger  question  of  the  land. 
One  Land  Act  led  to  another  till  the  people 
came  by  their  own.  Home  Rule,  first  to  be 
killed  by  resolute  government,  was  next  to  be 
killed  by  kindness,  and  Local  Government  came. 
Local  Government  made  Home  Rule  inevitable ; 
and  now  Home  Rule  is  at  hand  and  we  come  to 
the  last  step.  Anyone  who  reads  the  history 
of  Ireland,  who  understands  anything  of  prog- 
ress, who  can  draw  any  lesson  from  experience, 
must  realise  that  the  advent  of  Home  Rule 
marks  the  beginning  of  the  end. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

RESISTANCE   IN   ARMS FOREWORD 

i 

THE  discussion  of  freedom  leads  inevitably 
to  the  discussion  of  an  appeal  to  arms.  If 
proving  the  truth  and  justice  of  a  people's 
claim  were  sufficient  there  would  be  little  tyr- 
anny in  the  world,  but  a  tyrannical  power  is 
deaf  to  the  appeal  of  truth — it  cannot  be  moved 
by  argument,  and  must  be  met  by  force.  The 
discussion  of  the  ethics  of  revolt  is,  then,  in- 
evitable. 

ii 

The  ubiquitous  pseudo-practical  man,  petu- 
lant and  critical,  will  at  once  arise:  *'What  is 
the  use  of  discussing  arms  in  Ireland?  If  any- 
one wanted  to  fight  it  would  be  impossible,  and 
no  one  wants  to  fight.  What  prevents  ye  going 
out  to  begin  r'  Such  peevish  criticism  is  any- 
thing but  practical,  and  one  may  ignore  it ;  but 
it  suggests  the  many  who  would  earnestly  wish 

210 


RESISTANCE  IN  ARMS— FOREWORD    211 

to  settle  our  long  war  with  a  swift,  conclusive 
fight,  yet  who  feel  it  no  longer  practical.  Keep- 
ing to  the  practical  issue,  we  must  bear  in 
mind  a  few  things.  Though  Ireland  has  often 
fought  at  odds,  and  could  do  so  again,  it  is  not 
just  now  a  question  of  Ireland  poorly  equipped 
standing  up  to  England  invincible.  England 
will  never  again  have  such  an  easy  battle.  The 
point  now  to  emphasise  is  this — by  remaining 
passive  and  letting  ourselves  drift  we  drift  into 
the  conflict  that  involves  England.  We  must 
fight  for  her  or  get  clear  of  her.  There  can 
be  no  neutrality  while  bound  to  her;  so  a  mili- 
tary policy  is  an  eminently  practical  question. 
Moreover,  it  is  an  urgent  one :  to  stand  in  with 
England  in  any  danger  that  threatens  her  will 
be  at  least  as  dangerous  as  a  bold  bid  to  break 
away  from  her.  One  thing  above  all,  condi- 
tions have  changed  in  a  startling  manner ;  Eng- 
land is  threatened  within  as  without ;  there  are 
labour  complications  of  all  kinds  of  which  no 
one  can  foresee  the  end,  while  as  a  result  of  an- 
other complication  we  find  the  Prime  Minister 
of  England  going  about  as  carefully  protected 
as  the  Czar  of  Kussia.*    The  unrest  of  the  times 

*  The  militant  suffragette  agitation. 


212  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

is  apt  to  be  even  bewildering.  England  is  not 
alone  in  her  troubles — all  the  great  Powers  are 
likewise;  and  it  is  at  least  as  likely  for  any  one 
of  them  to  be  paralysed  by  an  internal  war  as 
to  be  prepared  to  wage  an  external  one.  This 
stands  put  clearly — ^we  cannot  go  away  from 
the  turmoil  and  sit  down  undisturbed ;  we  must 
stand  in  and  fight  for  our  own  hand  or  the 
hand  of  someone  else.  Let  us  prepare  and  stand 
for  our  own.  However  it  be,  no  one  can  deny 
that  in  all  the  present  upheavals  it  is  at  least 
practical  to  discuss  the  ethics  of  revolt. 

ill 

We  can  count  on  a  minority  who  will  see  wis- 
dom in  such  a  discussion;  it  must  be  our  aim 
to  make  the  discussion  effective.  We  must  be 
patient  as  well  as  resolute.  We  are  apt  to  get 
impatient  and  by  hasty  denunciation  drive  off 
many  who  are  wavering  and  may  be  won.  These 
are  held  back,  perhaps,  by  some  scruple  or 
nervousness,  and  by  a  fine  breath  of  the  truth 
and  a  natural  discipline  may  yet  be  made  our 
truest  soldiers.  Emerson,  in  his  address  at  the 
dedication  of  the  Soldiers'  Monument,  Concord, 
made  touching  reference  to  some  such  in  the 


RESISTANCE  IN  ARMS— FOREWORD    213 

American  Civil  War.  He  told  of  one  youth  he 
knew  who  feared  he  was  a  coward,  and  yet  ac- 
customed himself  to  danger,  by  forcing  him- 
self to  go  and  meet  it.  **He  enlisted  in  New 
York,'^  says  Emerson,  *^went  out  to  the  field, 
and  died  early.''  And  his  comment  for  us 
should  be  eloquent.  *'It  is  from  this  tempera- 
ment of  sensibility  that  great  heroes  have  been 
formed.''  The  pains  we  are  at  to  make  men 
physically  fit  we  must  take  likewise  to  make 
them  mentally  fit.  We  are  minutely  careful  in 
physical  training,  drill  regulations  and  the  rest, 
which  is  right,  for  thus  we  turn  a  mob  into  an 
army  and  helplessness  into  strength.  Let  us 
be  minutely  careful,  too,  with  the  untried  minds 
— timid,  anxious,  sensitive  in  matters  of  con- 
science; like  him  Emerson  spoke  of,  they  may 
be  found  yet  in  tne  foremost  fighting  line,  but 
we  must  have  patience  in  pleading  with  them. 
Here  above  all  must  we  keep  our  balance,  must 
we  come  down  with  sympathy  to  every  particu- 
lar. It  is  surely  evident  that  it  is  essential  to 
give  the  care  we  lavish  on  the  body  with  equal 
fulness  to  the  mind. 


214  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

iv 

At  tlie  heart  of  the  question  we  will  be  met 
by  the  religious  objection  to  revolt.  Here  all 
scruples,  timidity,  wavering,  will  concentrate; 
and  here  is  our  chief  difficulty  to  face.  The  right 
to  war  is  invariably  allowed  to  independent 
states.  The  right  to  rebel,  even  with  just  cause, 
is  not  by  any  means  invariably  allowed  to  sub- 
ject nations.  It  has  been  and  is  denied  to  us  in 
Ireland.  We  must  answer  objectors  line  by 
line,  leading  them,  where  it  serves,  step  by  step 
to  our  conclusions ;  but  this  is  not  to  make  free- 
dom a  mere  matter  of  logic — it  is  something 
more.  When  it  comes  to  war  we  shall  fre- 
quently give,  not  our  promises,  but  our  con- 
clusions. This  much  must  be  allowed,  how- 
ever, that,  as  far  as  logic  will  carry,  our  posi- 
tion must  be  perfectly  sound;  yet,  be  it  borne  in 
mind,  our  cause  reaches  above  mere  reasoning 
— ^mere  logic  does  not  enshrine  the  mysterious 
touch  of  fire  that  is  our  life.  So,  when  we  argue 
with  opponents  we  undertake  to  give  them  as 
good  or  better  than  they  can  give,  but  we  stake 
our  cause  on  the  something  that  is  more.  On 
this  ground  I  argue  not  in  general  on  the  right 


I 


RESISTANCE  IN  ARMS— FOREWORD    215 

of  war,  but  in  particular  on  the  right  of  re- 
volt; not  how  it  may  touch  other  people  else- 
where ignoring  how  it  touches  us  here  in  Ire- 
land. A  large  treatise  could  be  written  on  the 
general  question,  but  to  avoid  seeming  academic 
I  will  confine  myself  as  far  as  possible  to  the 
side  that  is  our  concern.  For  obvious  reasons 
I  propose  to  speak  as  to  how  it  affects  Catho- 
lics, and  let  them  and  others  know  what  some 
Catholic  writers  of  authority  have  said  on  the 
matter.  One  thing  has  to  be  carefully  made 
clear.  It  is  seen  in  the  following  quotation 
from  an  eminent  Catholic  authority  writing  in 
Ireland  in  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  Dr. 
Murray,  of  Maynooth:  *^The  Church  has  is- 
sued no  definition  whatever  on  the  question — 
has  left  it  open.  Many  theologians  have  writ- 
ten on  it;  the  great  majority,  however  (so  far 
as  I  have  been  able  to  examine  them),  pass  it 
over  in  silence."  {Essays  chiefly  Theological^ 
vol.  4).  This  has  to  be  kept  in  mind.  Theo- 
logians have  written,  some  on  one  side  and  some 
on  the  other,  but  the  Church  has  left  it  open. 
I  need  not  labour  the  point  why  it  is  useful  to 
quote  Catholic  authorities  in  particular,  since 
in  Ireland  an  army  representative  of  the  peo- 


216  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

pie  would  be  largely  Catholic,  and  much  former 
difficulty  arose  from  Catholics  in  Ireland  meet- 
ing with  opposition  from  some  Catholic  authori- 
ties. It  may  be  seen  the  position  is  delicate 
as  well  as  difficult,  and  in  writing  a  prelimi- 
nary note  one  point  should  be  emphasised.  We 
must  not  evade  a  difficulty  because  it  is  deli- 
cate and  dangerous,  and  we  must  not  temporise. 
In  a  physical  contest  on  the  field  of  battle  it  is 
allowable  to  use  tactics  and  strategy,  to  retreat 
as  well  as  advance,  to  have  recourse  to  a  ruse 
as  well  as  open  attack ;  but  in  matters  of  prin- 
ciple there  can  he  no  tactics,  there  is  one 
straightforward  course  to  follow,  and  that 
course  must  he  found  a/yid  followed  to^tho^t 
swervi/ng  to  the  end. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

RESISTANCE  IN  ARMS — THE  TRUE  MEANING  OF  LAW 


WHEN  we  stand  up  to  question  false  au- 
thority we  should  first  make  our  foot- 
ing firm  by  showing  we  understand  true  author- 
ity and  uphold  it.  Let  us  be  clear  then  as  to 
the  meaning  of  the  word  law.  It  may  be  de- 
fined :  an  ordinance  of  reason,  the  aim  of  which 
is  the  public  good  and  promulgated  by  the  rul- 
ing power.  Let  us  cite  a  few  authorities.  *^A 
human  law  bears  the  character  of  law  so  far 
as  it  is  in  conformity  with  right  reason ;  and  in 
that  point  of  view  it  is  manifestly  derived  from 
the  Eternal  Law."  {Aquinas  Ethicus,  Vol.  1, 
p.  276.)  Writing  of  laws  that  are  unjust 
either  in  respect  to  end,  author  or  form,  St. 
Thomas  says:  ^'Such  proceedings  are  rather 
acts  of  violence  than  laws;  because  St.  Augus- 
tine says:    ^A  law  that  is  not  just  goes  for  no 

law  at  all.^  "    {Aqiimas  Ethicus,  Vol.  1,  p.  292.) 

217 


218  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

'^The  fundamental  idea  of  all  law,"  writes  Bal- 
mez,  **is  that  it  be  in  accordance  with  reason, 
that  it  be  an  emanation  from  reason,  an  ap- 
plication of  reason  to  society''  (European  Civi- 
lisation, Chap.  53).  In  the  same  chapter  Bal- 
mez  quotes  St.  Thomas  with  approval:  ^^The 
kingdom  is  not  made  for  the  king,  but  the  king 
for  the  kingdom";  and  he  goes  on  to  the  natural 
inference:  ^^That  all  governments  have  been 
established  for  the  good  of  society,  and  that 
this  alone  should  be  the  compass  to  guide  those 
who  are  in  command,  whatever  be  the  form  of 
government."  It  is  likewise  the  view  of  Mill, 
in  Representative  Government,  that  the  well- 
being  of  the  governed  is  the  sole  object  of  gov- 
ernment. It  was  the  view  of  Plato  before  the 
Christian  era:  his  ideal  city  should  be  estab- 
lished, **that  the  whole  City  might  be  in  the 
happiest  condition."  (The  Republic,  Book 
4.)  Calderwood  writes:  *  ^Political  Govern- 
ment can  be  legitimately  constructed  only  on 
condition  of  the  acknowledgment  of  natural  ob- 
ligations and  rights  as  inviolable."  {Handbook 
of  Modern  Philosophy,  Applied  Ethics,  Sec.  4.) 
Here  all  schools  and  all  times  are  in  agreement. 
Till  these  conditions  are  fulfilled  for  us  we  are 


THE  TRUE  MEANING  OF  ULW         219 

at  war.  When  an  independent  and  genuine 
Irish  Government  is  established  we  shall  yield 
it  a  full  and  hearty  allegiance:  the  law  shall 
then  be  in  repute.  We  do  not  stand  now  to 
deny  the  idea  of  authority,  but  to  say  that  the 
wrong  people  are  in  authority,  the  wrong  flag 
is  over  us. 

ii 

*'We  must  overthrow  the  arguments  that 
might  be  employed  against  us  by  the  advocates 
of  blind  submission  to  any  power  that  happens 
to  be  established,*'  writes  Balmez,  on  resist- 
ance to  Be  Facto  Governments.  {European 
Civilisation  J  Chap.  55.)  We  could  not  be  more 
explicit  than  the  famous  Spanish  theologian. 
To  such  arguments  let  the  following  stand  out 
from  his  long  and  emphatic  reply: — *^ Illegiti- 
mate authority  is  no  authority  at  all;  the  idea 
of  power  involves  the  idea  of  right,  without 
which  it  is  mere  physical  power,  that  is  force." 
He  writes  further:  ^'The  conqueror,  who,  by 
mere  force  of  arms,  has  subdued  a  nation,  does 
not  thereby  acquire  a  right  to  its  possession; 
the  government,  which  by  gross  iniquities  has 
despoiled  entire  classes  of  citizens,  exacted  un- 


220  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

due  contributions,  abolished  legitimate  rights, 
cannot  justify  its  acts  by  the  simple  fact  of  its 
having  sufficient  strength  to  execute  these  in- 
iquities/' There  is  much  that  is  equally  clear 
and  definite.  What  extravagant  things  can  be 
said  on  the  other  side  by  people  in  high  places 
we  know  too  well.  Balmez  in  the  same  book  and 
chapter  gives  an  excellent  example  and  an  ex- 
cellent reply:  ^'Don  Felix  Amat,  Archbishop 
of  Palmyra,  in  the  posthumous  work  entitled 
Idea  of  the  Church  Militant^  makes  use  of  these 
words:  *  Jesus  Christ,  by  His  plain  and  ex- 
pressive answer,  Render  to  Ccesar  the  things 
that  are  CcBsar's,  has  sufficiently  established 
that  the  mere  fact  of  a  government's  existence 
is  sufficient  for  enforcing  the  obedience  of  sub- 
jects to  it.  .  .  .  '  His  work  was  forbidden 
at  Eome,"  is  Balmez'  expressive  comment,  and 
he  continues,  *^and  whatever  may  have  been 
the  motives  for  such  a  prohibition,  we  may  rest 
assured  that,  in  the  case  of  a  book  advocating 
such  doctrines,  every  man  who  is  jealous  of  his 
rights  might  acquiesce  in  the  decree  of  the 
Sacred  Congregation."  So  much  for  De  Facto 
Government.  It  is  usurpation;  by  being  con- 
summated  it  does  not  become  legitimate.  When 


THE  TRUE  MEANING  OF  LAW         221 

its  decrees  are  not  resisted,  it  does  not  mean  we 
accept  them  in  principle — nor  can  we  even  pre- 
tend to  accept  them  but  that  the  hour  to  resist 
has  not  yet  come.    It  is  the  strategy  of  war. 

iii 

We  stand  on  the  ground  that  the  English 
Government  in  Ireland  is  founded  in  usurpa- 
tion and  as  such  deny  its  authority.  But  if 
it  be  argued,  assuming  it  as  Ireland's  case,  that 
a  usurped  authority,  gradually  acquiesced  in 
by  the  people,  ultimately  becomes  the  same  as 
legitimate,  the  reply  is  still  clear.  For  our- 
selves we  meet  the  assumption  with  a  simple  de- 
nial, appealing  to  Irish  History  for  evidence 
that  we  never  acquiesced  in  the  English  Usur- 
pation. But  to  those  who  are  not  satisfied  with 
this  simple  denial,  we  can  point  out  that  even 
an  authority,  originally  founded  legitimately, 
may  be  resisted  when  abusing  its  power  to  the 
ruin  of  the  Commonwealth.  We  still  stand  on 
the  ground  that  the  English  government  is 
founded  in  usurpation,  but  we  can  dispose  of 
all  objections  by  proving  the  extremer  case. 
This  is  the  case  Dr.  Murray,  already  quoted, 
discusses.  ^^The  question, '^  he  writes,  *4s  about 


222  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

resistance  to  an  established  and  legitimate  gov- 
ernment which  abuses  its  power/'  {Essays, 
Chiefly  Theological,  Vol.  4.)  He  continues: 
*  *  The  common  opinion  of  a  large  number  of  our 
theologians,  then,  is  that  it  is  lawful  to  resist 
by  force,  and  if  necessary  to  depose,  the  sov- 
ereign ruler  or  rulers,  in  the  extreme — the  very 
extreme — case  wherein  the  following  conditions 
are  found  united : 

1.  The  tyranny  must  be  excessive — intolerable. 

2.  The  tyranny  must  be  manifest,  manifest  to 

men  of  good  sense  and  right  feeling. 

3.  The  evils  inflicted  by  the  tyrant  must  be 

greater  than  those  which  would  ensue  from 
resisting  and  deposing  him. 

4.  There  must  be  no  other  available  way  of  get- 

ting rid  of  the  tyranny  except  by  recurring 
to  the  extreme  course. 

5.  There  must  be  a  moral  certainty  of  success, 

6.  The  revolution  must  be  one  conducted  or  ap- 

proved by  the  community  at  large  .  .  . 
the  refusal  of  a  small  party  in  the  State  to 
join  with  the  overwhelming  mass  of  their 
countrymen  would  not  render  the  resist- 
ance of  the  latter  unlawful."     (Essays, 


THE  TRUE  MEANING  OF  LAW         223 

Chieflt/  Theological;  see  also  Eickaby, 
Moral  Philosophy/,  Chap.  8,  Sec.  7.) 
Some  of  these  conditions  are  drawn  out  at 
much  length  by  Dr.  Murray.  I  give  what  is 
outstanding.  How  easily  they  could  fit  Irish 
conditions  must  strike  anyone.  I  think  it  might 
fairly  be  said  that  our  leaders  generally  would, 
if  asked  to  lay  down  conditions  for  a  rising, 
have  framed  some  more  stringent  than  these. 
It  might  be  said,  in  truth,  of  some  of  them  that 
they  seem  to  wait  for  more  than  a  moral  cer- 
tainty of  success,  an  absolute  certainty,  that 
can  never  be  looked  for  in  war. 

iv 

When  a  government  through  its  own  iniquity 
ceajjes  to  exist,  we  must,  to  establish  a  new  gov- 
ernment on  a  true  and  just  basis,  go  back  to 
the  origin  of  Civil  Authority.  No  one  argues 
now  for  the  Divine  Eight  of  Kings,  but  in  study- 
ing the  old  controversy  we  get  light  on  the  sub- 
ject of  government  that  is  of  all  time.  To 
the  conception  that  kings  held  their  power  im- 
mediately from  God,  ^^Suarez  boldly  opposed 
the  thesis  of  the  initial  sovereignty  of  the  peo- 


224  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

pie;  from  whose  consent,  therefore,  all  civil 
authority  immediately  sprang.  So  also,  in  op- 
position to  Melanchthon's  theory  of  govern- 
mental omnipotence,  Suarez  a  fortiori  admitted 
the  right  of  the  people  to  depose  those  princes 
who  would  have  shown  themselves  unworthy  of 
the  trust  reposed  in  them.'^  (De  Wulf,  History 
of  Medieval  Philosophy,  Third  Edition,  p.  495.) 
Suarez'  refutation  of  the  Anglican  theory,  de- 
scribed by  Hallam  as  clear,  brief,  and  dis- 
passionate, has  won  general  admiration.  Hal- 
lam quotes  him  to  the  discredit  of  the  English 
divines:  ^*For  this  power,  by  its  very  nature, 
belongs  to  no  one  man  but  to  a  multitude  of 
men.  This  is  a  certain  conclusion,  being  com- 
mon to  all  our  authorities,  as  we  find  by  St. 
Thomas,  by  the  Civil  laws,  and  by  the  great 
canonists  and  casuists;  all  of  whom  agree  that 
the  prince  has  that  power  of  law-giving  which 
the  people  have  given  him.  And  the  reason  is 
evident,  since  all  men  are  born  equal,  and  con- 
sequently no  one  has  a  political  jurisdiction 
over  another,  nor  any  dominion;  nor  can  we 
give  any  reason  from  the  nature  of  the  thing 
why  one  man  should  govern  another  rather 
than  the  contrary. '^     (Hallam — Literature  of 


THE  TRUE  MEANING  OF  LAW         225 

Europe^  Vol.  3,  Chap.  4.)  Dr.  Murray,  in  the 
essay  already  quoted,  speaks  of  Sir  James 
Mackintosh  as  the  ablest  Protestant  writer  who 
refuted  the  Anglican  theory,  which  Mackintosh 
speaks  of  as  * '  The  extravagance  of  thus  repre- 
senting obedience  as  the  only  duty  without  an 
exception."  Dr.  Murray  concludes  his  own 
essay  on  Resistance  to  the  Supreme  Civil  Power 
by  a  long  passage  from  Mackintosh,  the  weight 
and  wisdom  of  which  he  praises.  The  greater 
part  of  the  passage  is  devoted  to  the  difficulties 
even  of  success  and  emphasising  the  terrible 
evils  of  failure.  In  what  has  already  been  writ- 
ten here  I  have  been  at  pains  rather  to  lay  bare 
all  possible  evils  than  to  hide  them.  But  when 
revolt  has  become  necessary  and  inevitable, 
then  the  conclusion  of  the  passage  Dr.  Murray 
quotes  should  be  endorsed  by  all:  ^*An  insur- 
rection rendered  necessary  by  oppression,  and 
warranted  by  a  reasonable  probability  of  a 
happy  termination,  is  an  act  of  public  virtue, 
always  environed  with  so  much  peril  as  to  merit 
admiration."  Yes,  and  given  the  happy  termi- 
nation, the  right  and  responsibility  of  estab- 
lishing a  new  government  rest  with  the  body  of 
the  people. 


226  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 


We  come,  then,  to  this  conclusion,  that  gov- 
ernment is  just  only  when  rightfully  established 
and  for  the  public  good;  that  usurpation  not 
only  may  but  ought  to  be  resisted ;  that  an  au- 
thority originally  legitimate  once  it  becomes 
habitually  tyrannical  may  be  resisted  and  de- 
posed ;  and  that  when  from  abuse  or  tyranny  a 
particular  government  ceases  to  exist,  we  have 
to  re-establish  a  true  one.  It  is  sometimes  care- 
lessly said,  ^^ Liberty  comes  from  anarchy,"  but 
this  is  a  very  dangerous  doctrine.  It  would  be 
nearer  truth  to  say  from  anarchy  inevitably 
comes  tyranny.  Men  receive  a  despot  to  quell 
a  mob.  But  when  a  people,  determined  and 
disciplined,  resolve  to  have  neither  despotism 
nor  anarchy  but  freedom,  then  they  act  in  the 
light  of  the  Natural  Law.  It  is  well  put  in  the 
doctrine  of  St.  Thomas,  as  given  by  Turner  in 
his  History  of  Philosophy  (Chap.  38):  ''The 
redress  to  which  the  subjects  of  a  tyrant  have 
a  just  right  must  be  sought,  not  by  an  indi- 
vidual, but  by  an  authority  temporarily  con- 
stituted by  the  people  and  acting  according  to 
law."    Yes,  and  when  wild  and  foolish  people 


THE  TRUE  MEANING  OF  LAW         227 

talk  hysterically  of  our  defiance  of  all  author- 
ity, let  ns  calmly  show  we  best  understand  the 
basis  of  Authority — ^which  is  Truth,  and  most 
highly  reverence  its  presiding  spirit — which  is 
Liberty. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

RESISTANCE  IN   AEMS OBJECTIONS 


HAVING  stated  the  case  for  resistance,  it 
will  serve  ns  to  consider  some  objections. 
Many  inquiring  minds  may  be  made  happy  by  a 
clear  view  of  the  doctrine,  till  some  clever  op- 
ponent holds  them  up  with  remarks  on  pru- 
dence, possibly  sensible,  or  remarks  on  revolu- 
tionists, most  probably  wild ;  with,  perhaps,  the 
authority  of  a  great  name,  or  unfailing  refuge 
in  the  concrete.  It  is  curious  that  while  often 
noticed  how  men,  trying  to  evade  a  concrete 
issue,  take  refuge  in  the  abstract,  it  is  not 
noticed  that  men,  trying  to  avoid  acknowledg- 
ing the  truth  of  some  principle,  take  refuge  in 
the  concrete.  A  living  and  pressing  difficulty, 
though  transient,  looms  larger  than  any  histori- 
cal fact  Ox  coming  danger.  Seeing  this,  we  may 
restore  confidence  to  a  baffled  mind,  by  helping 
it  to  distinguish  the  contingent  from  the  perma- 

228 


RESISTANCE  IN  ARMS— OBJECTIONS   229 

nent.     Thus,   by   disposing  of   objections,   we 
make  our  ground  secure. 

ii 

To  the  name  of  prudence  the  most  imprudent 
people  frequently  appeal.  Those  whose  one  ef- 
fort is  to  evade  difficulties,  who  to  cover  their 
weakness  plead  patience,  would  be  well  advised 
to  consider  how  men  passionately  in  earnest, 
enraged  by  these  evasions,  pour  their  scorn  on 
patience  as  a  thing  to  shun.  The  plea  does  not 
succeed;  it  only  for  the  moment  damages  the 
prestige  of  a  great  name.  Patience  is  not  a 
virtue  of  the  weak  but  of  the  strong.  An  ob- 
jector says:  ^'Of  course  all  this  is  right  in  the 
abstract,  but  consider  the  frightful  abuses  in 
practice, '^  and  some  apt  replies  spring  to  mind. 
Dr.  Murray,  writing  on  ^^ Mental  Reservation," 
in  his  Essays,  chiefly  Theological,  speaks  thus : 
^^But  it  is  no  objection  to  any  principle  of 
morals  to  say  that  unscrupulous  men  will  abuse 
it,  or  that,  if  publicly  preached  to  such  and  such 
an  audience  or  in  such  and  such  circumstances, 
it  will  lead  to  mischief."  This  is  admirable, 
to  which  the  objector  can  only  give  some  help- 
less repetitions.    With  Balmez,  we  reply;  **But 


230  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

in  recommending  prudence  to  the  people  let  us 
not  disguise  it  under  false  doctrines — let  us 
beware  of  calming  the  exasperation  of  misfor- 
tune by  circulating  errors  subversive  of  all  gov- 
ernments, of  all  society.''  (European  Civilisa- 
tion, Chap.  55.)  Of  men  who  shrink  from  in- 
vestigating such  questions,  Balmez  wrote:  **I 
may  be  permitted  to  observe  that  their  pru- 
dence is  quite  thrown  away,  that  their  foresight 
and  precaution  are  of  no  avail.  Whether  they 
investigate  these  questions  or  not,  they  are  in- 
vestigated, agitated  and  decided,  in  a  manner 
that  we  must  deplore."  (Ibid,  Chap.  54.)  Take 
with  this  Turner  on  France  under  the  old  re- 
gime and  the  many  and  serious  grievances  of 
the  people:  ^*The  Church,  whose  duty  it  was 
to  inculcate  justice  and  forbearance,  was  iden- 
tified, in  the  minds  of  the  people,  with  the  Mon- 
archy which  they  feared  and  detested."  {His- 
tory/ of  Philosophy,  Chap.  59.)  The  moral  is 
that  when  injustice  and  evil  are  rampant,  let 
us  have  no  palliation,  no  weakness  disguising 
itself  as  a  virtue.  What  we  cannot  at  once  re- 
sist, we  can  always  repudiate.  To  ignore  these 
things  is  the  worst  form  of  imprudence — an  im- 


RESISTANCE  IN  ARMS— OBJECTIONS   231 

prudence  which  we,  for  our  part  at  least,  take 
the  occasion  here  heartily  to  disclaim. 

iii 

There  is  so  much  ill-considered  use  of  the 
word  revolutionist,  we  should  bear  in  mind  it 
is  a  strictly  relative  term.  If  the  freedom  of  a 
people  is  overthrown  by  treachery  and  violence, 
and  oppression  practised  on  their  once  thriv- 
ing land,  that  is  a  revolution,  and  a  bad  revolu- 
tion. If,  with  tyranny  enthroned  and  a  land 
wasting  under  oppression,  the  people  rise  and 
by  their  native  courage,  resource  and  patience 
re-establish  in  their  original  independence  a 
just  government,  that  is  a  revolution,  and  a 
good  revolution.  The  revolutionist  is  to  be 
judged  by  his  motives,  methods  and  ends ;  and, 
when  found  true,  his  insurrection,  in  the  words 
of  Mackintosh,  is  '^an  act  of  public  virtue.'' 
It  is  the  restoration  of  Truth  to  its  place  of 
honour  among  men. 

iv 

Balmez  mentions  Bossuet  as  apparently  one 
who  denies  the  right  here  maintained;  and  we 


232  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

may  with  profit  read  some  things  Bos  suet  has 
said  in  another  context,  yet  which  touches 
closely  what  is  our  concern.  Writing  of  Les 
Empires y  thus  Bossuet:  **Les  revolutions  des 
empires  sont  reglees  par  la  providence,  et 
servent  a  humilier  les  princes.''  This  is 
hardly  calculated  to  deter  us  from  a  bid  for 
freedom;  and  if  we  go  on  to  read  what  he  has 
written  further  under  this  heading,  we  get 
testimony  to  the  hardihood  and  love  of 
freedom  and  country  that  distinguished  early 
Greece  and  Eome  in  language  of  elo- 
quence that  might  inflame  any  people  to 
liberty.  Of  undegenerate  Greece,  free  and 
invincible:  ^'Mais  ce  que  la  Grece  avait 
de  plus  grand  etait  une  politique  ferme  et 
prevoyante,  qui  savait  abandonner,  hasarder 
et  defendre,  ce  qu'il  fallait;  et,  ce  qui  est  plus 
grand  encore,  un  courage  que  Tamour  de  la 
liberte  et  celui  de  la  patrie  rendaient  invinci- 
ble. ' '  Of  undegenerate  Eome,  her  liberty :  *  La 
liberte  leur  etait  done  un  tresor  qu'  ils  preferoi- 
ent  a  toutes  les  richesses  de  V  univers.''  Again: 
'*La  maxime  fondamentale  de  la  republique 
etait  de  regarder  la  liberte  comme  une  chose 
inseparable  du  nom  Eoman.''     And  her  con- 


RESISTANCE  IN  ARMS— OBJECTIONS    233 

stancy:  ^'Voila  de  fruit  glorieux  de  la  patience 
Romaine.  Des  peuples  qui  s'enhardissaient  et 
se  fortifiaient  par  leurs  malheurs  avaient  bien 
raison  de  croire  qu'  on  sauvait  tout  pourvu 
qu'  on  ne  perdit  pas  resperance/'  And  again: 
'^Parmi  eux,  dans  les  etats  les  plus  tristes, 
jamais  les  faibles  conseils  n'  ont  ete  seulement 
ecoutes.''  The  reading  of  such  a  fine  tribute 
to  the  glory  of  ancient  liberties  is  not  likely  to 
diminish  our  desire  for  freedom ;  rather,  to  add 
to  the  natural  stimulus  found  in  our  own  splen- 
did traditions,  the  further  stimulus  of  this 
thought  that  must  whisper  to  us:  ^'Persevere 
and  conquer,  and  to-morrow  our  finest  oppo- 
nent will  be  our  finest  panegyrist  when  the  bat- 
tle has  been  fought  and  won.'' 

V 

In  conclusion,  in  the  concrete  this  simple 
fact  will  suffice :  we  have  established  immutable 
principles;  the  concrete  circumstances  are  con- 
tingent and  vary.  It  is  admirably  put  in  the 
following  passage:  *^The  historical  and  socio- 
logical sciences,  so  carefully  cultivated  in  mod- 
ern times,  have  proved  to  evidence  that  social 
conditions  vary  with  the  epoch  and  the  coun- 


234  PEINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

try,  that  they  are  the  resultant  of  quite  a  num- 
ber of  fluctuating  influences,  and  that,  accord- 
ingly, the  science  of  Natural  Eight  should  not 
merely  establish  immutable  principles  bearing 
on  the  moral  end  of  man,  but  should  likewise 
deal  with  the  contingent  circumstances  accom- 
panying the  application  of  those  principles.'' 
(De  WuK,  Scholasticism  Old  and  New,  Part 
2,  Chap.  2,  Sec.  33.)  Yes,  and  if  we  apply  prin- 
ciples to-morrow,  it  is  not  with  the  conditions 
of  to-day  we  must  deal,  but  ^^with  the  con- 
tingent circumstances  accompanying  the  appli- 
cation of  those  principles."  Let  that  be  empha- 
sised. The  conditions  of  twenty  years  ago  are 
vastly  changed  to-day ;  and  how  altered  the  con- 
ditions of  to-morrow  can  be,  how  astonishing 
can  be  the  change  in  the  short  span  of  twenty 
years,  let  this  fact  prove.  Ireland  in  '48  was 
prostrate  after  a  successful  starvation  and  an 
unsuccessful  rising — to  all  appearances  this 
time  hopelessly  crushed;  yet  within  twenty 
years  another  rising  was  planned  that  shook 
English  government  in  Ireland  to  its  founda- 
tions. Let  us  bear  in  mind  this  further  from 
De  Wulf :  *^  Sociology,  understood  in  the  wider 
and  larger  sense,  is  transforming  the  methods 


RESISTANCE  IN  ARMS^OBJECTIONS    235 

of  the  science  of  Natural  Right/*  In  view  of 
that  transformation  he  is  wise  who  looks  to  to- 
morrow. What  De  Wulf  concludes  we  may  well 
endorse,  when  he  asks  us  to  take  facts  as  they 
are  brought  to  light  and  study  ^^each  question 
on  its  merits,  in  the  light  of  these  facts  and  not 
merely  in  its  present  setting  but  as  presented 
in  the  pages  of  history.'*  It  can  be  fairly  said 
of  those  who  have  always  stood  for  the  separa- 
tion of  Ireland  from  the  British  Empire,  that 
they  alone  have  always  appealed  to  historical 
evidence,  have  always  regarded  the  conditions 
of  the  moment  as  transient,  have  always  dis- 
cussed possible  future  contingencies.  The  men 
who  temporised  were  always  hypnotised  by  the 
conditions  of  the  hour.  But  in  the  life-story 
of  a  nation  stretching  over  thousands  of  years, 
the  British  occupation  is  a  contingent  circum- 
stance, and  the  immutable  principle  is  the  Lib- 
erty of  the  Irish  People. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE  BEaRNA  BAOGHAILi — CONCLUSION 

i 

BUT  when  principles  have  been  proved  and 
objections  answered,  there  are  still  some 
last  words  to  say  for  some  who  stand  apart — 
the  men  who  held  the  breach.  For,  they  do 
stand  apart,  not  in  error  but  in  constancy ;  not 
in  doubt  of  the  truth  but  its  incarnation;  not 
average  men  of  the  multitude  for  whom  human 
laws  are  made,  who  must  have  moral  certainty 
of  success,  who  must  have  the  immediate  al- 
legiance of  the  people.  For  it  is  the  distinguish- 
ing glory  of  our  prophets  and  our  soldiers  of 
the  forlorn  hope,  that  the  defeats  of  common 
men  were  for  them  but  incentives  to  further 
battle;  and  when  they  held  out  against  the 
prejudices  of  their  time,  they  were  not  standing 
in  some  new  conceit,  but  most  often  by  pro- 
phetic insight  fighting  for  a  forgotten  truth  of 
yesterday,  catching  in  their  souls  to  light  them 

236 


THE  BEARNA  BAOGH AIL— CONCLUSION  237 

forward,  the  hidden  glory  of  to-morrow.  They 
knew  to  be  theirs  by  anticipation  the  general 
allegiance  without  which  lesser  men  cannot  pro- 
ceed. They  knew  they  stood  for  the  Truth, 
against  which  nothing  can  prevail,  and  if  they 
had  to  endure  struggle,  suffering  and  pain,  they 
had  the  finer  knowledge  bom  of  these  things, 
a  knowledge  to  which  the  best  of  men  ever  win 
— that  if  it  is  a  good  thing  to  live,  it  is  a  good 
thing  also  to  die.  Not  that  they  despised  life 
or  lightly  threw  it  away;  for  none  better  than 
they  knew  its  grandeur,  none  more  than  they 
gloried  in  its  beauty,  none  were  so  happily  full 
as  they  of  its  music;  but  they  knew,  too,  the 
value  of  this  deep  truth,  with  the  final  loss  of 
which  Earth  must  perish :  the  man  who  is  afraid 
to  die  is  not  fit  to  live.  And  the  knowledge  for 
them  stamped  out  Earth's  oldest  fear,  winning 
for  life  its  highest  ecstasy.  Yes,  and  when 
one  or  more  of  them  had  to  stand  in  the  dark- 
est generation  and  endure  all  penalties  to  the 
extreme  penalty,  they  knew  for  all  that,  they 
had  had  the  best  of  life  and  did  not  count  it  a 
terrible  thing  if  called  by  a  little  to  anticipate 
death.  They  had  still  the  finest  appreciation 
of  the  finer  attributes  of  comradeship  and  love ; 


238  PRINCIPLES  OP  FREEDOM 

but  it  is  part  of  the  mystery  of  their  happiness 
and  success,  that  they  were  ready  to  go  on  to 
the  end,  not  looking  for  the  suffrage  of  the  liv- 
ing nor  the  monuments  of  the  dead.  Yes,  and 
when  finally  the  re-awakened  people  by  their 
better  instincts,  their  discipline,  patriotism  and 
fervour,  will  have  massed  into  armies,  and 
marched  to  freedom,  they  will  know  in  the 
greatest  hour  of  triumph  that  the  success  of 
their  conquering  arms  was  made  possible  by 
those  who  held  the  breach. 

ii 

When,  happily,  we  can  fall  back  on  the  elo- 
quence of  the  world's  greatest  orator,  we  turn 
with  gratitude  to  the  greatest  tribute  ever 
spoken  to  the  memory  of  those  men  to  whom 
the  world  owes  most.  Demosthenes,  in  the  fin- 
est height  of  his  finest  oration,  vindicates  the 
men  of  every  age  and  nation  who  fight  the  for- 
lorn hope.  He  was  arraigned  by  his  rival, 
^schines,  for  having  counselled  the  Atheni- 
ans to  pursue  a  course  that  ended  in  defeat,  and 
he  replies  thus :  **If,  then,  the  results  had  been 
foreknown  to  all — ^not  even  then  should  the 
Commonwealth  have  abandoned  her  design,  if 


THE  BEARNA  BAOGHAIL— CONCLUSION    239 

she  had  any  regard  for  glory,  or  ancestry,  or 
futurity.  As  it  is,  she  appears  to  have  failed 
in  her  enterprise,  a  thing  to  which  all  mankind 
are  liable,  if  the  Deity  so  wills  it.*'  And  he 
asks  the  Athenians:  ^^Why,  had  we  resigned 
without  a  struggle  that  which  our  ancestors  en- 
countered every  danger  to  win,  who  would  not 
have  spit  upon  jouV^  And  he  asks  them  fur- 
ther to  consider  strangers,  visiting  their  City, 
sunk  in  such  degradation,  ^^  especially  when  in 
former  times  our  country  had  never  preferred 
an  ignominious  security  to  the  battle  for  hon- 
our/* And  he  rises  from  the  thought  to  this 
proud  boast:  **None  could  at  any  period  of 
time  persuade  the  Commonwealth  to  attach  her- 
self in  secure  subjection  to  the  powerful  and  un- 
just; through  every  age  has  she  persevered  in 
a  perilous  struggle  for  precedency  and  honour 
and  glory. '*  And  he  tells  them,  appealing  to 
the  memory  of  Themistocles,  how  they  hon- 
oured most  their  ancestors  who  acted  in  such 
a  spirit:  ^^Yes;  the  Athenians  of  that  day 
looked  not  for  an  orator  or  a  general,  who 
might  help  them  to  a  pleasant  servitude:  they 
scorned  to  live  if  it  could  not  be  with  freedom. '  * 
And  he  pays  them,  his  listeners,   a  tribute: 


240  PRINCIPLES  OP  FREEDOM 

**Wliat  I  declare  is,  that  such,  principles  are 
your  own ;  I  show  that  before  my  time  such  was 
the  spirit  of  the  Commonwealth.'^  From  one 
eloquent  height  to  another  he  proceeds,  till, 
challenging  ^schines  for  arraigning  him,  thus 
counselling  the  people,  he  rises  to  this  great 
level;  '^But,  never,  never  can  you  have  done 
wrong,  0  Athenians,  in  undertaking  the  bat- 
tie  for  the  freedom  and  safety  of  all:  I  swear 
it  by  your  forefathers — those  that  met  the  peril 
at  Marathon,  those  that  took  the  field  at 
Plataea,  those  in  the  sea-fight  at  Salamis,  and 
those  at  Artimesium,  and  many  other  brave 
men  who  repose  in  the  public  monuments,  all  of 
whom  alike,  as  being  worthy  of  the  same  hon- 
our, the  country  buried,  ^schines,  not  only 
the  successful  and  victorious."  We  did  not 
need  this  fine  eloquence  to  assure  us  of  the 
greatness  of  our  O'Neills  and  our  Tones,  our 
O'Donnels  and  our  Mitchells,  but  it  so  quickens 
the  spirit  and  warms  the  blood  to  read  it,  it  so 
touches — by  the  admiration  won  from  ancient 
and  modern  times — an  enduring  principle  of 
the  human  heart — the  capacity  to  appreciate  a 
great  deed  and  rise  over  every  physical  defeat 
— ^that  we  know  in  the  persistence  of  the  spirit 


THE  BEARNA  BAOGHAIL— CONCLUSION    241 

we  shall  come  to  a  veritable  triumpli.  Yes ;  and 
in  such  light  we  turn  to  read  what  Ruskin  called 
the  greatest  inscription  ever  written,  that 
which  Herodotus  tells  us  was  raised  over  the 
Spartans,  who  fell  at  Thermopylae,  and  which 
MitchePs  biographer  quotes  as  most  fitting  to 
epitomise  MitchePs  life:  *^ Stranger,  tell  thou 
the  Lacedemonians  that  we  are  lying  here,  hav- 
ing obeyed  their  words.''  And  the  biographer 
of  Mitchel  is  right  in  holding  that  he  who  reads 
into  the  significance  of  these  brave  lines,  reads 
a  message  not  of  defeat  but  of  victory. 

iii 

Yes ;  and  in  paying  a  fitting  tribute  to  those 
great  men  who  are  our  exemplars,  it  would  be 
fitting  also,  in  conclusion,  to  remember  our- 
selves as  the  inheritors  of  a  great  tradition; 
and  it  would  well  become  us  not  only  to  show 
the  splendour  of  the  banner  that  is  handed  on 
to  us,  but  to  show  that  this  banner  we,  too,  are 
worthy  to  bear.  For,  how  often  it  shall  be 
victorious  and  how  high  it  shall  be  planted,  will 
depend  on  the  conception  we  have  of  its  su- 
preme greatness,  the  knowledge  that  it  can  be 
fought  for  in  all  times  and  places,  the  convic- 


242  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

tion  that  we  may,  when  least  we  expect,  be 
challenged  to  deny  it ;  and  that  by  our  bearing 
we  may  bring  it  new  credit  and  glory  or  drag  it 
low  in  repute.  We  do  well,  I  say,  to  remember 
these  things.  For  in  our  time  it  has  grown 
the  fashion  to  praise  the  men  of  former  times 
but  to  deny  their  ideal  of  Independence;  and 
we  who  live  in  that  ideal,  and  in  it  breathe  the 
old  spirit,  and  preach  it  and  fight  for  it  and 
prophesy  for  it  an  ultimate  and  complete  vic- 
tory— ^we  are  young  men,  foolish  and  unprac- 
tical. And  what  should  be  our  reply?  A  re- 
ply in  keeping  with  the  flag,  its  history  and  its 
destiny.  Let  them,  who  deride  or  pity  us,  see 
we  despise  or  pity  their  standards,  and  let  them 
know  by  our  works — lest  by  our  election  they 
misunderstand — that  we  are  not  without  abil- 
ity in  a  freer  time  to  contest  with  them  the 
highest  places — avoiding  the  boast,  not  for  an 
affected  sense  of  modes+y  but  for  a  saving 
sense  of  humour.  For  in  all  the  vanities  of 
this  time  that  make  Life  and  Literature  choke 
with  absurdities,  pretensions  and  humbug,  let 
us  have  no  new  folly.  Let  us  with  the  old  high 
confidence  blend  the  old  high  courtesy  of  the 
Gaedheal.     Let  us  grow  big  with  our  cause. 


THE  BEARNA  BAOGHAIL— CONCLUSION   243 

Shall  we  honour  the  flag  we  bear  by  a  mean, 
apologetic  front?  No!  Wherever  it  is  down, 
lift  it;  wherever  it  is  challenged,  wave  it; 
wherever  it  is  high,  salute  it;  wherever  it  is 
victorious,  glorify  and  exult  in  it.  At  all  times 
and  forever  be  for  it  proud,  passionate,  persist- 
ent, jubilant,  defiant ;  stirring  hidden  memories, 
kindling  old  fires,  wakening  the  finer  instincts 
of  men,  till  all  are  one  in  the  old  spirit,  the 
spirit  that  will  not  admit  defeat,  that  has  been 
voiced  by  thousands,  that  is  noblest  in  Emmet's 
one  line,  setting  the  time  for  his  epitaph: 
^'When  my  country" — ^not  if — ^but  ''when  my 
country  takes  her  place  among  the  nations  of 
the  earth."  It  is  no  hypothesis;  it  is  a  cer- 
tainty. There  have  been  in  every  generation, 
and  are  in  our  own,  men  dull  of  apprehension 
and  cold  of  heait,  who  could  not  believe  this, 
but  we  believe  it,  we  live  in  it :  we  know  it.  Yes, 
we  know  it,  as  Emmet  knew  it,  and  as  it  shall 
be  seen  to-morrow;  and  when  the  historian  of 
to-morrow,  seeing  it  accomplished,  will  write  its 
history,  he  will  not  note  the  end  with  surprise. 
Eather  will  he  marvel  at  the  soul  in  constancy, 
rivalling  the  best  traditions  of  undegenerate 
Greece  and  Eome,  holding  through  disasters, 


244  PRINCIPLES  OF  FREEDOM 

persecutions,  suffering,  and  not  less  through 
the  seductions  of  milder  but  meaner  times,  see- 
ing through  all  shining  clearly  the  goal :  he  will 
record  it  all,  and  still  marvelling,  come  to  the 
issue  that  dauntless  spirit  has  reached,  proud 
and  happy;  but  he  will  write  of  that  issue — 
Liberty;  Inevitable :  in  two  words  to  epitomise 
the  history  of  a  people  that  is  without  a  parallel 
in  the  Annals  of  the  World. 


THE  END 


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